I'm Watching!
by Ceies
Summary: To the Todoroki Siblings for years just two things held true: 1. Their father was the number two hero, Endeavor, a vile, cruel and arrogant man; the reason for their mother's breakdown and their own suffering. 2. Nobody could know. But now it seems, both these truths were overturned. And suddenly everything changed. / This is added content to my story 'Demons of the Past'.
1. Shoto I

**A/N:**

In my last chapter of 'Demons of the Past', I asked if there was some interest in a Shoto PoV and the response was pretty positive, so here it is. Actually, this is not just meant for a Shoto PoV but for all added content from different perspectives that I may think about later, though there's no specific plan.

If you found this story without actually knowing my main story 'Demons of the Past', I gladly invite you to read that first, as many of these chapters will probably not make too much sense if you didn't. I mean..., I'm happy for everybody who reads this story, but it may cause some difficulty.

I am considering to at least try a PoV for the other siblings too, that I will add in here, if I get it done, but of course the main story has priority. I also don't want to risk spoiling anything for 'Demons of the Past', so whatever I post here will probably 'already have happened' in the main story. This first chapter, for example, is set right before the chapter 'The Interview' of the main story.

As I do not know what kinds of chapters and One Shots I'll be writing, I will update necessary trigger warnings and character tags as I go along.

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**Shoto I**

"What's going on down there?" asked Mineta, loudly interrupting Aizawa-sensei and their homeroom class to point out the window down to the street in front of the school. Shoto didn't know what the boy was talking about. He himself sat furthest away from the window and only saw blue sky, however, it seemed like something was going on. After Mineta's comment had made them look, the entire window filled up with students who stared down at the street with varying degrees of curiosity.

"It's the journalists? Do they want another interview with All Might?" wondered Midoriya out loud, thinking, of course, first of his mentor's fame.

"Pah!" grumbled Bakugou still sitting on his chair, turning pointedly away from the window as if it didn't concern him and surely did not interest him what was happening down there. "Probably just poking their noses in where they don't belong," he complained before he grabbed his pen with more fervor than necessary, almost snapping it in two when he started copying what Aizawa had written down on the board in front of the class before Mineta had interrupted him.

However, soon there wasn't much more Bakugou could write down from the board as Aizawa, too, had now interrupted his class to walk over to the closest window himself.

"What do they want?" asked Mineta.

"They are probably here because of Todoroki-kun", explained Yaoyorozu.

"What about Todoroki?" wondered Kirishima aloud. He had walked over to the window, pressing his hands against the glass to watch. Then he turned around to look first at Shoto then at Yaoyorozu. "Because of his Dad's injury or what did I miss?"

"Don't you watch the news?" asked Yaoyorozu in surprise, as if she didn't understand how Kirishima didn't know what she was talking about. But apparently, Kirishima wasn't the only one who wasn't entirely up to date. Most of the students now turned to her questioningly, throwing quick glances in Shoto's direction. Shoto just sank back in his chair. He really didn't want to talk about this and…

Well, it had been inevitable that his classmates would find out sooner or later, now that the less glamorous aspects of his father's private life were plastered all over the news. Better to just get it all out in the open now. Get it out, that would be the least painful, he assumed. Like ripping off a bandaid. Quick and effective and it would hurt for a moment, but then it would be over. Everybody would know now, but eventually, they'd just get used to the knowledge and let it go. Shoto could go back to his normal everyday life. And maybe it would be easier if everybody knew. At least they would probably stop talking to him about the achievements of his father as if he had to be proud of it, or act as if he were oh-so-lucky that he had this powerful quirk from his mother and father as if everything was just gifted to him.

Midoriya already knew anyway.

"I watch the news," Midoriya said with obvious confusion in his voice. "But there was nothing new about Todoroki-kun." He sounded confident, but then he added an unsure "or did I miss something?"

"This morning they broke the story everywhere," explained Yaoyorozu, looking over to Shoto apologetically, as if she felt sorry for calling Shoto's suffering a 'story'. Maybe she couldn't think of a more fitting word in time. It didn't matter to Shoto anyway.

"Oh," mumbled Midoriya quietly, "I didn't watch the morning news today. What happened?"

"Apparently…," but she stopped herself before she said anything of substance, glancing at Shoto uncertainly. "Eh…" Shoto was almost thankful that she obviously didn't really want to talk about what she knew.

"That's enough," interrupted Aizawa, before Shoto would have to decide if he should encourage Momo. "We'll resume class, now. You can all look up the news during lunch. Shoto, I'd like to talk to you after the end of class."

"Sure," mumbled Shoto, still sunken in his chair wishing he could just vanish into the ground and wait out the storm. Did he want to talk to Aizawa about his family life? Not really, but it was preferable to talking in front of the entire class or being subjected to their curiosity.

Maybe it was too late to avoid the latter, he thought as his classmates walked back to their seats one after the other, throwing him nosy glances. Some of them looked as if they hoped Shoto or Yaoyorozu would whisper to them about what had happened. "But, Sensei!" complained Kirishima, "shouldn't we all…".

"We're going to find out anyway in half an hour," Mineta said almost simultaneously. Both were immediately shut up as Aizawa-sensei flashed his quirk. There was a sudden quiet in which nobody dared to say a word, then Aizawa turned back to his board.

"Well, now that that's done…" he mumbled to himself as he resumed with his explanation about the importance of proper first aid.

Shoto found it hard to concentrate as Aizawa resumed his class. He scribbled down whatever the teacher wrote on the board, but before Shoto had even copied the last word of a sentence, he had already forgotten what the whole sentence was about. It was hard to stay focused knowing that in a short while all of his classmates would pull out their phones and find the truth about Shoto's childhood plastered all over the internet. And what was he supposed to tell Aizawa? If his teacher asked him about it, he couldn't really to him, could he?

For years part of him had always hoped that the truth would get out. Just to see how his father would go down for all his despicable deeds that nobody had ever known about. Shoto himself had never talked to anybody about anything that happened at home, apart from Midoriya, of course. Maybe he had feared how the people would react, how they would treat him if they knew… Maybe he had been ashamed. Mostly, however, he had been obsessed with ruining his father by himself. Proving him wrong about all his goals, showing him how Shoto could become the best without his worthless help. It had been a thing between himself and his father. He had to best his father and he had never even considered running for help. Maybe years ago, when his mother had still been living with them and suffering from his father's hand, but back then Shoto had been too young and afraid. And later she had slowly started recovering so… making it all public wouldn't help, he thought.

Of course, Mother's doctors knew, but they were sworn to secrecy unless his mother decided otherwise. For whatever reason, though, Mother seemed determined to protect his father. So even from that side nothing filtered through to the public.

And still part of him had always hoped it would happen, had speculated how it could happen and pictured the consequences. Even only a few months ago, he had still played with the idea. They'd lock his father away, and Shoto would finally be rid of him. Maybe Natsuo would come home and Shoto could finally get to know him for real and … maybe even Mother could finally come home without her abusive husband around. It was a secret dream he had dwelled in, whenever he had been a bit too frustrated, when he hadn't been as powerful with his ice-quirk as he would have wished, when his training had forced him to see the clear limits of his mother's quirk and he had started to doubt that he would ever be the best without his father's cursed flames.

That was then… And now was different. He hadn't been really frustrated for a long time, now that he had accepted his flames. Midoriya had helped him with that. And his father…had changed? Maybe. He was at least trying to. Shoto didn't know how real the change was, how well it would hold if it could ever be enough to make up for all the things Endeavor had done to his mother, his siblings or Shoto personally. He wasn't sure of any of that. But he was sure that his father was really trying. It was plain to see. And Fuyumi was right, that had to count for something.

If his father was trying to be better, if he was actually changing … would it be petty to hold a grudge? No! Shoto had decided this long ago. He had every right to after everything his father had done. It wasn't even about having a grudge. Shoto didn't love his father, part of him even still hated him. And that was his father's fault. Other children loved their parents, the way he loved his mother. When he was younger, he had been a bit jealous, that other children had loving parents while he only had Endeavor. While everybody seemed always keen on telling him how lucky he was to be the son of such a great hero, he would have gladly changed fathers with just about anybody. If they thought him so great, why didn't they try to be Endeavor's child for a week and see how they liked it? Shoto didn't love his father … and for the longest time, he had been sure his father didn't love him, didn't care about him beyond his own ambitions to make Shoto stronger than All Might. And it was all his father's own fault. It was also his fault, that Shoto for the longest time in his youth didn't really have his mother. No, none of that was undone by his father finally behaving somewhat decently. Shoto didn't love his father, didn't even like him, and that wouldn't change, just because Enji Todoroki had finally started treating his family better. Familial love just didn't come out of nowhere like this.

But still, his efforts to change had to count for something. So, while Shoto didn't think it was petty to still hold a grudge, he increasingly thought it was petty to still somewhat wish his father gone. He didn't want Endeavor imprisoned or ruined the way he had before. More the opposite … Increasingly, Shoto found himself thinking … imagining … hoping that his father could do it. Increasingly, Shoto wanted that part of himself, that still thought it would be best if Enji just vanished from his life, that still insisted that he couldn't possibly change for real, proven wrong.

And now of all times, the truth had to come out. The timing was so ridiculously ironic; it would have almost been amusing. In fact, when Shoto had first seen the news this morning he had actually started laughing. It was a joke, his first thought had been. But of course, it wasn't a joke. It was reality…just life and life loved punching him in the face.

"Shoto-kun?" Aizawa-sensei motioned him over to his desk as soon as everybody else had left the room. "Just a minute."

"Sure, Sensei," grumbled Shoto as he grabbed his bag and carried it over to one of the chairs closest to the desk. "What did you want to talk about?" he asked as if he didn't know.

Aizawa just raised an eyebrow at him, obviously aware that Shoto knew very well what his teacher wanted to talk to him about. He looked tired, Shoto realized now that he was closer to his sensei.

Eventually, Aizawa sighed audibly and stretched his neck in a gesture of almost embarrassment. "Now, I won't ask you to verify those reports. I feel I have a pretty good idea myself," he looked at Shoto, scrutinizing. Shoto tried very hard not to give away any obvious reactions and only after sitting perfectly still for a few seconds did it occur to him that freezing was an obvious reaction by itself. His shoulders sagged a little in disappointment. Aizawa, however, only nodded after a moment. "But I want you to know, that if you want to talk about it, I'm here for you. Truthfully, I would prefer it, if you talked to somebody about this, but I know it won't serve to pressure you and if you feel like I'm not the person you want to share your story with, that is fine too."

Shoto nodded, a bit relieved. "I understand," he whispered breathily.

"But I am here for you," the teacher emphasized, "if you ever need somebody to talk".

"Thanks." Shoto didn't really know what else to say.

Aizawa looked at him again with that same scrutinizing look that didn't seem to miss anything. Shoto doubted he even needed to tell this man for him to find out the truth. The very thought would have made him wary and defensive with anybody else, but with Aizawa-sensei Shoto trusted the teacher wouldn't ever turn against him. Their homeroom teacher was like that. He acted as if he didn't care, but although Shoto didn't know what it was that made him so sure, he was certain that the teacher was trustworthy. He couldn't explain where that trust came from. Normally, Shoto wasn't one to trust or share easily, but with Aizawa, he almost wanted to tell him everything. It wasn't all that different from that time when he had decided to open up to Midoriya.

And that had turned out well too, right? Better than expected even.

Aizawa finally broke eye contact. He absentmindedly shuffled some papers on the desk. "There is something else. This morning there were already requests by several news agencies for an interview. Since you live on campus, they have to file a request with UA to get on school grounds and to get your contact details." Shoto was immediately worried, but Aizawa hurried to continue. "Don't worry. We, of course, denied all their requests. At least for now. Ultimately it is your decision. So, if you…"

"No," Shoto said immediately, "thanks for denying them. I don't really want to talk to anybody… Least of all the media."

"I understand that." Aizawa looked up at him again. "But if you should change your mind, you can. Just tell me, and we can arrange for you to speak to the media or the police or somebody from the Hero Association. There are rules and regulations in place that can lead to harsh consequences for Endeavor if that is what you want. So, whatever you want to do, UA will support you."

"Thanks," Shoto said again though a bit more honestly now. Even if he didn't really want to talk to anyone or bring those consequences down upon his father, it was surprisingly good to know the school was on his side. Should he change his mind, should his father fail him again, he'd have a powerful ally this time. More powerful than even Endeavor himself. If he used that … he wouldn't get hurt again, he realized.

He wouldn't let himself be hurt again. Shoto was willing to give his father a chance. Just one-Enji Todoroki's first and final chance. If he screwed up again if he hurt Shoto or his mother or his siblings again … There would be consequences. Not like years ago, when Shoto had still been too young and just stood by and watched. This time Shoto wouldn't just watch. If his father had actually changed for the better, good, but if he hadn't, if he fell back into old patterns, Shoto would ruin him. Not in the childish way he had tried before, but for real, with a strong ally and loyal friends.

Apropos Enji Todoroki … His father had probably seen the news by now too. Sure, the last time Shoto had seen him he was still unconscious for most of the time, but surely, he was better now. And it wasn't like his father had anything to occupy him other than watching TV while he laid around until his body had recovered. Surely, his father must know by now, Shoto suspected. Father would be furious.

"Eh…?" Shoto started uncertainly. "Would it be possible to visit my father in the hospital?" He looked at Aizawa and quickly added: "I know visiting hours are rather short and I have classes all day, but…"

"I can drive you over later," Aizawa offered quickly. "I have some time in the afternoon. Meet me here again at three o'clock?"

"Great," Shoto thanked him for the offer, then he left the room. On his way outside to the cafeteria, he texted his sister. It would be best if she could come too, then they could try calming Father together. The man was surely raging mad right now. He almost felt sorry for the nurses who had to work with him.


	2. Natsuo I

Somehow after my first attempt at Shoto's second chapter that got lost I was never motivated to write it again. That first attempt was essenially the entire scene when Enji told them about Touya from Shoto's perspective. It was very long and now in retrospect I not only don't want to write it again, I also thought it was probably not necessary... This project is not meant to rewrite the entire 'Demons of the Past' story from Shoto's perspective but give further context... so I'm not going to rewrite that scene from a different perspective. Instead I think the next Shoto scene will be after that meeting. Speaking of which: Welcome to the first Natsuo chapter which also happens chronologically after Enji tells Fuyumi and Shoto about Touya being Dabi. I hope you like it.

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**Natsuo I**

He stared at his phone, turning it between his fingers; undecided. Should he call? He wondered. He'd have to, eventually. Natsuo knew that. He couldn't avoid his father forever. As long as Endeavor was still healing from the injuries sustained on that day, it was fairly easy to keep out of his way. But after Endeavor's recovery; what then?

He couldn't run forever. Maybe before that day, he could have. After everything his father had done, it was just right that Natsuo left him hanging now. But then, that cursed day had happened and now everything seemed different.

Maybe.

Was it? Different?

Really?

He wasn't sure. At least, it felt different. Not because he could suddenly forgive Endeavor but because…now, Natsuo owed him an apology. What a ridiculous turn of events!

After everything his father had done to him, his siblings, and his mother, after all these years, Natsuo had just done one wrong step and now it felt as if he OWED him. Ridiculous! Why would his conscience not just leave him alone? He hadn't wanted his father hurt, but surely Endeavor had deserved it, anyway. At least to a degree.

Right?

Right!

So, why couldn't he sleep anymore? Why was the prospect of seeing his father again suddenly clouded with this all new and foreign emotion? Shame!

He should call, he knew he should. But he also knew he wouldn't. What would he say to his father, whom he hadn't actually spoken to in years. The last time they had met, Natsu had screamed some words at him - anger that Endeavor well deserved thrown in his face. But now…Where would he even start.

He flipped the phone in his hand, undecided, then he stared at the ceiling, cursing. "Shit, I'm a coward," he muttered to himself. Fuyumi kept him informed about their father's state. After he had been rescued, Endeavor had remained in a coma-like state for almost two days, before he had woken up on Sunday. Since then, Fuyumi had said he apparently slept most of the time. Fuyumi told him to come visit, father would like to see him, he asked about him, but Natsuo didn't. And he didn't call. And he knew with everyday that passed it was less likely that he would visit or call the next day.

Damn, this was shit! Why couldn't everything just go back to how it had been before. Why was he so stupid to trust Haru… No, not Haruka. Himiko Toga! A villain. His ignorance in all things to do with heroes and villains had bit him in the ass. And Touya…how could he!?

Suddenly his phone rang loudly, shocking Natsu out of his thought so he almost dropped the phone. His father? His thoughts automatically went back to Endeavor. Maybe the Flame Hero ran out of patience with his son and…

No, it wasn't his father, he realized when Fuyumi's picture appeared on the screen. For a second, he just stared at her smiling face, blinking in surprise. Maybe his sister had a second sense when to call him when he felt shitty. This was uncanny and not the first time this happened. He took the call.

"Hi sis," he greeted cheerfully, fearing she'd see straight through his fake happiness and ask him what was going on. And how could he tell her?

He knew it was stupid. She'd find out anyway, eventually. More so now, that his Dad had woken from his coma and was recovering. The police would interview him soon, and it was only a question of time for when he would reveal the truth about Touya and Natsuo's own involvement in the whole thing.

He knew he should just tell Fuyumi, she'd find out anyway, and it was best it came from him. But he truly was a coward, so instead he put on a smile that he knew she wouldn't be able to see and cheered into the phone: "What up?"

"I can't believe him!" Fuyumi didn't bother with a greeting, instead she bellowed loudly into her phone that Natsuo was surprised how loud her voice came out on his end. "How dare he!" She was angry. That much was obvious.

"What…?" he started confused by her bad mood. Fuyumi was normally the calmest member of their family, never angry, never losing control. She didn't even let him time to finish his question.

"Can you believe it?" she interrupted him. "He said it was Touya!" She laughed in her phone. It was a rough, humorless and grating sound. It didn't fit her. "That stupid liar!"

"What? Who?" he threw his questions in, knowing he wouldn't have the time to formulate them properly.

"Who?" she repeated loudly her voice snapping and high pitched. "Dad! He's a stupid liar! You were right, Natsu! And I tried to give him a chance!" At one point her voice almost gave out despite her anger and Natsu realized she must be crying as well.

"What did he do?" he asked darkly, all other things forgotten. How dare Endeavor hurt Fuyumi! She was the purest among them, the most important person in Natsu's life. To think Natsu just now thought about calling to apologize to their father, when their father did…whatever he had done to Fuyumi! How dare he made her cry! "Tell me what he did! What happened, Fuyu?"

There was hiccupping from her side as if she was trying and failing to compose herself. "The police were there, today," she explained, "I-I came to tell him about your diary. He doesn't know, yet. But the police were already there for his statement."

Natsu felt a shiver of foreboding run down his spine. If Father had already made his statement, it was too late for him to come clean. Endeavor would tell them all about Natsuo's own involvement. No way would he lie to the police for Natsuo's sake. For Shoto's sure, for his own sake maybe, but not for the useless failure who had above all betrayed and almost inadvertently killed him. Natsu had missed his chance to come clean. He caught himself staring at the door waiting for the police to break in and haul him away to be questioned.

Then, he forced himself to calm down. No, he still had time. Even if Enji had told him about Natsuo's involvement with the League, they couldn't just teleport to his door. For now it was just Fuyumi.

Fuyumi… why wasn't she angry with him, he wondered. Then he remembered. She hadn't even mentioned anything to do with him, she had mentioned … Touya.

Oh…

"What did he say?" he asked somewhat tight-lipped, fearing the answer.

"You're not going to believe it!" she raged into her phone., "Hhe's actually trying to pin it on Touya. I mean, where does he get that idea from? It's ridiculous! He's a liar, that's what he is! And I gave him a chance!"

"Calm down," demanded Natsu, because her words were tumbling over each other, making it hard to understand them.

"Yeah, sorry," she relented, "it's just … I'm so angry!" She actually huffed a loud sound of frustration into the phone. "I don't know what he thinks he's going to win from this, maybe hoping for some sympathy points in the situation, but he told the police … ah, it's infuriating! He told them big brother, our brother Touya, was apparently a villain called Dabi who tried to murder him. How ridiculous is that?"

Natsuo closed his eyes. Yeah, how ridiculous was that?

"As if Touya would ever do something like that. Never mind he's dead. And this man thinks he can just trample on his memory!"

"Fuyumi," Natsu tried to get a word in. He had to make it right. This was his fault, he should have told her long ago,. bBut she kept going.

"I'm never going to forgive him! I'm done trying to forgive him."

"He's not lying… Fuyumi, listen!" Natsuo tried, but Fuyumi seemed to angry to even hear his words.

"And I thought he had changed! You were right, Natsu. He's never going to change, so now that was the last time, I fell for him. I don't want to see him ever again!"

"Fuyumi, you're overreacting!" he warned, knowing she would regret those words.

"OVERREACTING!?" she screeched. "I'm mad, yeah! But for good reason! He tried to make Touya look like a villain. Like a murdering maniac. Touya! Our brother! He'd never hurt anybody, and he's been dead for six years."

"Fuyumi, I have to tell…" he tried to interrupt again, only half-heartedly.

"How dare he trample on his memory like that! He never cared for him, obviously, or he wouldn't do that! For none of us!"

She was wrong, Natsuo knew. But how could he explain it to her. He hardly believed it himself. Only when he had seen their father trapped in chains in the villains' lair, tortured by this girl that had posed as his girlfriend for months, had he realized how his brother had changed. He had nightmares of Touya hurting not just their father, but Natsuo and his other siblings, too. And he still couldn't understand it. How his brother Touya, whom he had looked up to all his life, could turn into this villain … he couldn't grasp it, still.

And know he had to explain it to Fuyumi. But how could he, if she didn't give him a chance?. And would she believe him? She hadn't believed their father, so how could she believe him?. Touya turning into a villain didn't sound any less ludicrous just because it came from him.

He felt his courage drifting away. He truly was a coward. They were just words, and he had to speak them.

"Sorry, Natsu," Fuyumi finally calmed down on the other side of the line., "I just needed somebody to vent. What did you want to say?"

But he couldn't.

"Nothing," he mumbled, the word almost stuck in his throat and he blushed dark red with embarrassment. He truly was pathetic. His father had been right, all along. A failure! There was a time when he had wanted to be a hero and Endeavor had never taken that goal seriously. Now, Natsuo knew, Endeavor had been right. How could he be a hero if he wasn't brave enough to even only speak some words.

"Nothing," he repeated, and the word hurt as it slipped past his lips. "Did he say anything else?"

Since he already was a coward, why not ask one more cowardly question. With no word had Fuyumi even mentioned that their father had said anything about his middle son.

"Eh?" Fuyumi made a sound of confusion, still huffing from anger but calm enough to listen, now. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know," he muttered cowardly, "something about me?"

"I don't know", she admitted uncertainly. "What should he have said?"

Natsu put the phone away from his ear in a motion of stunned surprise. Father hadn't ratted him out. If he had said anything regarding Natsuo's involvement, Fuyumi would have surely mentioned it. But he hadn't.

"Natsu?" Fuyumi's voice drifted from the speakers. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," he muttered into the phone. "Yeah, sure."

"It's a lot to take in, I know," Fuyumi admitted. "After I tried so hard to convince you to give him a chance … Well, I guess you always knew him better than me, after all. I guess, I was just naïve."

"Yeah," Natsu muttered unconvinced and tired, feeling like the biggest coward there was.

"Maybe you could come visit someday," Fuyumi suggested, "I have the house all for myself for as long as he's in hospital." There was a short pause. "Do you think I should move out, before he comes back?."

Natsuo shrugged to himself. He didn't answer.

"Natsu?"

"Ah, no, sorry. I can't visit," he excused himself, "I have to catch up on an entire missed week of classes." That was a good enough excuse, he felt. In truth, he didn't dare to see her face to face. He should have just told her the truth, he knew, but now, he felt like his chance had passed. Now, he was caught in a web of lies, like a house of cards and he was afraid of the time it would inevitably crumble.

"Ah, okay," Fuyumi relented. "Then I'll see you tomorrow at Mom's?"

"Sure," he agreed, because not visiting Mom would be suspicious no matter how many lessons he had to catch up to.


	3. Shoto II

And Hi again for this very active Sunday!

I felt it was time to update this chapter again. I actually had a Rei chapter written out, and wanted to wait until after the conversation with Rei, to reveal that. However, I felt I first needed another Shoto chapter.

I struggled a lot with this Shoto chapter. First I had it completely written out, but then it was super long and mostly just dealt with his conversation with Enji - stuff we already saw from Enji's perspective, and I don't want to just retell stuff, we already know from the main story. Then I had a lot of trouble writing the dynamics of Class 1A... So this took a lot of time to write and many retries. I hope you are somewhat happy with the result.

This happens a few hours after **Shoto I** and directly after Chapter 11 **'Dropping More than One Bombshell'** of the main story.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Shoto II**

It was quiet during the drive back to UA. An uncomfortable sort of silence. Shoto knew Aizawa wanted to ask what had happened. Ask again, as he had before right as he had seen Shoto come back from visiting his father, pale and still in shock after the news he had received. The new information about Touya.

Shoto hadn't answered. He didn't feel like sharing, not yet anyway. Now he could feel Aizawa's eyes on him glancing at the boy in the passenger seat every time he could effort to look away from the traffic.

Shoto busied himself staring at his phone, scrolling through his contacts aimlessly, until he felt Aizawa was about to ask again. Quickly he pressed the 'Call'-Button to call Fuyumi. He didn't get through and ended the call quickly after, but it was enough to stop Aizawa's question before it was voiced.

They drove onto the school grounds in silence and Shoto hurried to leave the car as soon as the teacher stopped.

"Shoto!" Todoroki stopped himself from sprinting right off, as his teacher called him back with the most commanding tone Aizawa could muster. If he wanted to, their laid-back homeroom teacher could seem positively frightening. Shoto had learned by now, that when Aizawa used this tone, you better listen. So, he stopped and turned around.

His teacher turned off the engine and stepped out of the car. Now, he stood next to the driver's door, looking over the car at his student with narrowed eyes. "I want you to talk to somebody about what happened." His eyes narrowed a bit further and for a moment a shiver went down Shoto's spine thinking the teacher was just erasing his quirk. Then he realized how absurd that notion was. Neither would there be reason for Aizawa to do so nor did his hair raise into the air as it would normally do when he used his quirk-erasing powers.

"I mean it," Aizawa enforced his prior statement. "If you don't want to talk to me, you will talk to somebody else."

"You said, I didn't have to talk about it," Shoto retorted trying to negotiate.

"That was before you came back from your father's room all pale, looking like you had just seen a ghost and would any moment vomit all over your lap."

"I didn't…," Shoto defended himself but Aizawa wouldn't hear it.

"You can't see yourself right now. Something happened. I want you to tell somebody. As your teacher, I am responsible for you. I'll give you the chance to involve somebody of your own choosing, but if I don't see you do that, I will involve myself." It sounded like a threat. An oddly comforting though similarly disconcerting one.

"Okay," Shoto finally agreed part of him hoping that was enough so he could finally leave.

"I mean it, Shoto." Aizawa wouldn't let him go just now.

Shoto looked at him a bit stubbornly, then he finally nodded. "I will," he agreed again, though this time more honestly. Finally, Aizawa nodded and let him go.

When he had agreed to Aizawa's demands, he hadn't really thought of anybody in particular. He had just tried to get away, be alone and finally think about what he had just found out. His agreement had been honest, but… Talking about his father, his mother… Touya! It wasn't something he was quite ready to do, so he pushed the thought aside for another moment.

However, the question who this trusted individual should be, was quickly answered, when Izuku Midoriya was the first person greeting him and quickly overwhelming him with his affection the second Shoto entered the dormitory.

"How are you?" Midoriya asked as soon as he laid eyes on Shoto.

He was the only one in the common room. Shoto didn't know where the others were. Maybe doing their homework, he assumed, or relaxing in their rooms or on the school grounds. He was somewhat glad the others weren't around. He wanted to be alone.

"I'm fine," Shoto answered quickly and unconvincingly if Midoriya's concerned frown was anything to go by.

"We were concerned about you," Midoriya admitted letting Shoto stroll past him up the stairs to their rooms.

"There's no need," Shoto said at once.

"Hm," Midoriya grumbled unhappily. "You look very pale."

As they went past the other rooms a few boys heard the conversation on the corridor and opened their doors.

"Todoroki-kun," Sato called out waving at him. He came out of his room with an almost shy blush on his face. "I made cake if you want some." In fact, he already balanced a plate with a still steaming hot chocolate cake on his right hand, a welcoming smile on his face.

"I chose the recipe!" Mineta called a bit too loud, as he ran from his room to Sato to present the cake with him.

The bigger boy nodded still looking a bit embarrassed, while Mineta looked positively proud of their joined effort. Shoto blinked at the two boys, not knowing how he should react. Already the warm scent of chocolate and bananas invaded his senses.

"Thank you, guys," he said a bit hoarse. "It smells really good, but this really wasn't necessary."

"But we just wanted to cheer you up!" answered Mineta happily.

Sato nodded, maybe happy that Mineta took over the talking.

"Somebody should tell the girls, that you've arrived," Kirishima said leaning against the doorframe to his room. "Momo wanted to make us all eat together as soon as you returned. Maybe we could watch a manly movie to distract you." Suddenly it got a bit louder as Kirishima and Kaminari discussed what movie they should watch. Shoto followed the conversation stunned but with growing confusion as he didn't know half of those movies. He had never watched Crocodile Dundee, nor The Expandables. He was sure, he had watched Inception at some point with Touya many years ago, when… Touya…

Shoto caught Bakugou's eye for a moment who stood at his own door frowning. They exchanged a quick look, and for a second Shoto thought the other kid might want to hit him, the way Bakugou always looked so aggressive. Then Bakugou looked at his two arguing friends.

"Oi! You Idiots, Shut up!" He demanded and Kaminari and Kirishima immediately quieted looking at each other awkwardly and then to Shoto.

"Uh… Sorry," said Kirishima, "what would you like to watch, Todoroki?"

Shoto sighed. "Nothing," he admitted, throwing an apologetic glance at Sato. "Thanks for the cake, but I want to be alone for a while."

The other boys seemed immediately put off by his refusal. Only Bakugou just gave an unhappy grunt and returned to his room smashing his door with quite some noise.

"Are you sure?" asked Iida with open concern on his face.

"But we want to help you!" cried Kaminari in disappointment. "We all feel so stupid that we didn't know!" He looked to his friends for support. Some of the boys nodded, most just looked awkwardly. "I mean…, some of us acted as if you were so lucky that Endeavor was… Well, you know." Now, Kaminari seemed embarrassed too. "If we had known he was such an asshole, we-"

"Kaminari, enough," interrupted Iida taking over his position as class rep. "Everybody back in your rooms!" He used his most commanding voice, then he watched as the other boys complied one after the other with disappointed looks and murmurs. Sato looked especially disgruntled as he took his freshly baked cake back into his room. Shoto felt a little bad about it. Finally, Iida threw him one last assessing glance and then vanished into his own room.

Through all this Midoriya remained standing next to Shoto and as Shoto went to his own room, he didn't complain when the green-haired boy followed him.

He didn't even say anything, when Midoriya followed him into the room. The two boys looked at each other for a moment. Midoriya probably waited for Shoto to throw him out, but as he didn't, he closed the door behind him, sitting down on the Tatami mats in Shoto's traditionally furnished room.

"How is your father doing?" asked Midoriya and Shoto somewhat appreciated that the other boy showed concern for his father.

Like Kaminari it seemed many of his other friends in school assumed that now that they knew what Endeavor had done – or thought they knew – they all had to collectively hate him to show solidarity to Shoto. This morning Shoto had thought it was a bit endearing. It showed how much they cared. But really, while to them his father's abuse was a whole new revelation warranting their scorn, to him it had all happened years ago. To him it seemed like his father was trying to do better. While he didn't particularly like or even forgave him, he also didn't really want his friends to go around proclaiming their raging hatred for him either.

He didn't need people telling him how much they would let his father suffer if they had the chance. After all, he just came from visiting his father in the hospital.

This whole thing was so complicated. Midoriya at least seemed to understand. Maybe because he knew of the abuse already for a long time. Maybe Midoriya could even help him make sense out of his feelings, Shoto thought. Midoriya had a talent when it came to understanding people. He was good at that and he had helped Shoto before, hadn't he?

"He is recovering," Shoto answered sitting down on his Futon fiddling a little with the blanket neatly folded there. "He'll need a few more days before he can leave the hospital but… I don't know if it wouldn't be better if he stayed there a bit longer."

He had genuinely thought about it. Maybe his father could just hide away a few more days. Part of him wanted Endeavor to face the consequences of his actions, but another part wanted to just act as if none of that had happened. As if it wasn't common knowledge what had happened with his family, who Endeavor really was, as if he didn't know that Touya was still alive and a villain who had attacked UA, kidnapped Bakugou and played a part in bringing down All Might. Life had been easier, then. As long as Endeavor was holed up in his little private room in the hospital, away from the public eye, Shoto could pretend none of it had happened. The storm would blow over. He just had to let it pass.

He knew, it wasn't an option. This wasn't a storm that would just pass, because he wished it so.

"Did you talk to him about it?" Midoriya questioned. "How to handle the situation, I mean."

Shoto looked at the green-haired boy for a second… Two. Three. Then he shook his head. "We didn't really get to talk about it," he admitted.

Midoriya looked confused. "I thought, that was why you went to him in the first place," he wondered frowning in thought.

"Yeah," Shoto shrugged. "But… Something else came up."

He glanced at Midoriya, thinking now would be the time to send him away if he didn't want to tell the other boy. Shoto was still fiddling with the blanket between his fingers. Half of him wished Midoriya would just up and leave, but he did no such thing and Shoto didn't really find the words to send him away.

The silence between them seemed thick, almost oppressive.

"You know you can tell me?" Midoriya suddenly asked with genuine concern in his voice.

Shoto knew. Midoriya was the kind of kid you not just could tell everything, you _wanted_ to. And so he did. He told him everything. About Fuyumi's rage, about Natsuo's kidnapping. About Touya most of all.

"He is Dabi," the words were ridiculously absurd on his lips and tongue and yet so true.

For a while, Midoriya didn't say anything. He stared at Shoto with huge green eyes and Shoto hardly dared to look back at him. Then the other boy swallowed. "From the League?" Midoriya asked as casual as possible.

"Yes. The man with the blue fire quirk," he specified although he was sure that between all the students Midoriya knew the League best. He had not just met them, fought against them, saved Bakugou at Shoto's side, he was also the kind of boy who noticed everything, made notes about every tiny little details, heroes and villains alike. Of course, he remembered Dabi.

"You fought against him," Midoriya said after another short pause, "during the training camp, when they took Kacchan."

_How sad, Shoto Todoroki._

He remembered well enough, without Midoriya needing to remind him. Touya had been right there. Right in front of him, his hand around Bakugou's neck as he had dragged the boy behind him through the swirling purple and black vortex that was Kurogiri's quirk. Right in front of his eyes, and Shoto hadn't recognized him. His own brother.

"I didn't recognize him," he admitted shamefully. "He had changed so much…" He made a gesture towards his face, indicating Dabi's many scars, but it was just a convenient excuse. With scars, or without scars, how could he not recognize his own brother?

Then again, he had never spent much time with his siblings. That too, had been Endeavor's fault. He gritted his teeth in a new wave of anger at his father. That's what his anger was now… Waves. They came and went. Just a few months ago, his anger had been a raging storm, an ugly vortex of black hatred, that had threatened to swallow him whole. Midoriya had saved him from that. Now it came and went, sometimes more powerful, sometimes numbed to almost non-existence.

"It's all his fault," he hissed in anger through clenched teeth. The other boy didn't try to rebuke him. "All his fault! I hardly got to spend time with Touya as a kid, and now he's…" He gestured widely, helpfully, senselessly. Lost as he was, there was no reasonable thought to convey. Midoriya seemed to understand that, so he just let him vent his rage, until his anger deflated with one last frustrated huff. "He tried to kill father." He pointed at his own chest, not sure if the thought of Touya killing Endeavor should make him feel angry, afraid or helpless, and if it was anger, he felt, he wouldn't know who of the two he was angrier at. "Shot him in the chest and the back."

"He didn't use his quirk?" Midoriya asked thoughtfully, weighing his head.

It was odd. Shoto had already considered that two days ago, when the doctor had first told him about his father's injuries. The League had used their quirks on him, Shigraki at least; the injuries, where Endeavor's skin had withered away and flaked off had been obvious proof of that. But then they had shot him like ordinary criminals. When he had hurt that, long before he ever knew about Touya's involvement, it had made him angry for his father's sake. He didn't remember the last time, he had been angry for Endeavor's sake, but the very idea had made him sick to the stomach. Had they tortured him with their quirks and then tried to put him out of his misery like some animal?

Now he knew it was Touya, and what could he do with that information? And Natsuo… Had he known?

"That's odd," Midoriya said after Shoto didn't answer for a while. "Villains using ordinary weapons is uncommon these days."

"I know," Shoto said before Midoriya could feel inclined to rattle down some statistics that he surely knew from the top of his head. "The doctors couldn't explain it either. But they didn't know it was Touya, so…"

"Maybe it was emotional distress," Midoriya suggested. "Maybe he couldn't really kill your father after all."

Shoto grunted. The thought was comfortable, but he doubted it. "Dabi shot him three times," he reminded. "Touya," he corrected. "I don't know."

He put his head in his hand trying to dispel the headache that was forming there. "I don't know," he remembered. "He kidnapped Bakugou," he suddenly changed the topic, "right from under our eyes. And even," he hesitated, coughed slightly, looked up at Midoriya apologetically, "he was there during that fight between All Might and All For One, right? He could have helped! But he just… and now All Might lost all his power and had to retire!" Guilt welled up in his eyes. Midoriya looked at him with wide open eyes, he could see the other boy wreck his head for something nice to say, and the fact that he couldn't come up with anything… When did Midoriya ever lack the right words to make one of his friends feel better? Wasn't that condemning enough proof that the situation was really as screwed up as Shoto felt it was? "If I had just recognized him!" he cried out, pulling at his hair in his distress, "maybe I could have made him see reason, help us! Help All Might! But I didn't and so-"

"He was knocked out," Midoriya interrupted suddenly. His voice was quiet that Shoto hardly heard him at first. "He was knocked out, don't you remember?" He repeated. "I don't know what happened, but when they were all transported to us, Dabi was completely out of it, right? He couldn't have helped All Might. Even if you had recognized him, there was nothing you could have done."

Shoto stared at him. Knocked out? But it was true. He remembered it only now, after Midoriya said it. Dabi hadn't fought against Bakugou in Kamino, he hadn't done anything. One for All had used this teleportation quirk of his – or whatever quirk that was – and Dabi had only lain on the ground, out called. He had even remained unconscious when All For One dragged him through one of Kurogiri's portals away from the scene.

Dabi couldn't have done anything. At least not back then. There was plenty of other things to think about. During the training camp, Fukuoka, the attack that had killed the hero Snatch… Still he felt comfortable relief well up inside his heart.

"Thanks," he muttered with a shaky breath. The green-haired boy smiled at him. "Really, thanks, Midoriya. You're good friend."

* * *

So, some other stuff about how I want to continue with this story:

As I mentioned before, I already have a Rei chapter written out. As next weekend I will upload the chapter about Rei in the main story, I will upload "Rei I" a few days after that (so that everybody can first read the Chapter in the main story, so they won't be spoiled on the main story.)

After that, I'm currently thinking about writing a chapter on Hawks. Normally I always want to only make a chapter about a character when they are relevant in the main story and when seeing their perspective won't spoil anything for the main plot. (For example, I only uploaded the first chapter (Shoto I), AFTER we already knew about the contents of the diary being made public. I only wrote Natsuo I after we found out about Fuyumi's adamant denial in the main story, and so on. Just like that, we will only get the first Rei chapter, after her appearance in the main story...) Hawks would be the first exception to that rule, as he did not (and will not for a while - at least not prominently) appear in the main story, to give his opinion unless I can somehow build him in. So this is all not yet fixed in stone, I think it would be a lot more elegant to first somehow involve him in the main plot.

Anyway, after Hawks, I'm thinking - though that is not yet written out - it will be time for another Natsuo chapter. That will probably be set chronologically BEFORE Rei I. I hope you have no problem with that.

So, that only leaves Fuyumi, and sadly, Fuyumi will probably stay without a chapter of her own for a while, because there's stuff I first need to address in the main story, and that will take a while.

Are there any other characters you'd like to read about?


	4. Rei I

Hello,

as promised, it's time for Rei I.

This chapter is chronologically about a month after the last chapter **Shoto II**, and is a follow up to the **23rd Chapter** of Demons of the Past "**Rei**". It should be read right after that chapter. If you have found your way here without reading chapter 23 of Demons of the Past, I'd recommend that you go back and read that first.

* * *

**Rei I**

"Okay," he said. Four letters, like a breath of fresh air.

_Twenty-five years ago, it had been just three letters to seemingly spell her doom: Yes. She had stood in front of a Shinto shrine in a traditional white kimono with a hood, that she thought made her look ridiculous even when everybody told her how beautiful she was. It had just been too much cloth for the slip of a girl she had been, too much white for her already white and pale figure. She had always felt she needed more color to make her look livelier, thinking her white hair made her look eerie, ghostly like death impersonated._

_Despite her complexes she'd been happy back then standing next to Enji Todoroki in front of the old altar with a priest in front of them and a Mito a bit to their side, with her parents looking so proud._

_She hadn't loved the man beside her with whom she exchanged three cups of sake this day and who would be her husband by the end of the night. Still, she had been happy. Years later, she'd attribute that naïve happiness to the shallowness of a young girl, but back then she had – in a way – thought she'd won a Jackpot. For she knew there were girls out there who'd kill for the opportunity to be in her place now. Well, maybe not literally kill, but Enji Todoroki had been a good catch. A better man than a girl like her could have expected, some jealous former classmates had reminded her weeks before this day. And she had thought they were right._

_She was still young. Just eighteen years old, she had finished her last exams and had thought about going to business school, though now she thought about just being a regular housewife and mother to make her future husband and her family proud. There were many who would call her stupid or shallow, but in fact she was just very shy. She blended in the background. Standing in front of a white wall, most people didn't even see her really. She wasn't ugly or anything, so of course she had the odd boy being interested in her, but she had always been so shy that they soon found her boring. Colorless, lifeless._

_When she was young, some children teased her for being as pale as she was. They called her a 'ghost' and thought she brought bad luck. Some others had admired her for her strong and powerful quirk, and then ridiculed her for being so weak herself._

_She was the boring, pale and colorless middle child of poor but proud parents, living in one of the biggest cities in Japan. A city filled with girls any guy would find more interesting. It wasn't like she didn't want a boyfriend or her own life changing romance. But there was no such story for her, no boy and no epic love tale._

_Her family was a traditional, prideful one, so to her, even despite her lack of boyfriends, she knew she'd marry someday. She'd be a housewife one day, like her mother was. Arranged marriages weren't uncommon, though less and less common every year, but while she was still hoping for her big romance, she wasn't averse to the idea of her parents choosing someone suitable for her. If she didn't like their choice, she could still decline._

_However, Rei was nothing if not a dutiful daughter, so when a first suitor arrived offering not just a marriage but also financial aid for her struggling family, she readily accepted. She probably would have accepted anybody at that point, as dutiful and shy as she was._

_But it wasn't just anybody… It was Enji Todoroki._

_As she stood before the Shinto shrine on that day a bit over twenty-five years ago, she fancied herself the luckiest girl in all of Japan. Next to her stood tall and proud a man that many girls in her class had been talking about, during the last couple of months of school._

_Enji Todoroki was two years older than her. A tall and strong and handsome man with fiery red hair and vivid turquoise eyes. She could stare in those eyes for hours while they talked or just sat opposite each other eating in silence or now, as they exchanged the sake cups during the marriage ceremony. She was shamefully aware of her own boring grey eyes, grey and pale and colorless like every part of her._

_What would a man like him see in a girl like her? Of course, she knew what he wanted from her, why he chose her… But still, he could have any girl… Any guy too, she reckoned, and the thought made her blush with embarrassment. After all he was not just strong and good looking, but rich and a hero. The up and coming Flame Hero Endeavor who had quickly worked himself to the top of the Top Ten Charts within the last few months._

_The world lay at his feet, she thought, and felt positively tiny next to him._

_She wasn't in love. But she liked him well enough. Maybe if he frowned a little less and with time, she could grow to love him. She wanted to love him. She wanted to be a good wife to him, although the thought that she would be _his wife _soon had been a bit terrifying._

_Only a year later she had been pregnant for the first time. And on a cold January night, she had given birth to their first child: Touya, who had his father's red hair and turquoise eyes, beautiful and lively and colorful._

_Back then, she was happy; and she hadn't feared Enji Todoroki, yet._

She stared at the door for a while after he left. 'Okay', he had said the word, just like that. Then he had excused himself, and left with his shoulders hanging low. And she still couldn't believe it. When she had forced out her words for the first time, she had felt terrified. 'I want a divorce.' Saying them had felt good, but she had immediately feared his reaction. She had even said it again and again. She must have had a death wish, she thought now.

But he hadn't reacted in anger. At first, he had hardly even reacted at all apart from surprise and she had almost retracted her words. Take them back as fast as possible, before they could register with her husband and he could retaliate. Her psychiatrist and the big nurse Rei knew only very vaguely wouldn't have been able to save her from her husband's wrath. How naïve could she be, to assume she was safe here?

But then, before her resolve could break, he relented, to her astonishment. He had turned his face away from her, looking at his feet as he gave his acceptance, and then moved to leave. And through this motion, Enji gave her the first clear view of the unscarred, fireless side of his face. Where she remembered a burning, raging beard of fire, there was now only some rough dark stubble on his upper lip and his strong jaw line. He looked older without his beard, she thought, then admonishing herself for her stupidity. Of course, the last time she had seen him, he had still been in his thirties, now he was in his mid-forties. It wasn't just the scars that had changed his appearance.

And then he was gone, and Rei Todoroki found herself staring at the empty door.

"Rei," her psychiatrist started to talk quietly, "are you alright?"

She took a deep breath, then Rei nodded slightly. "Yes," she checked herself over, "I think."

"I would like to talk to you about the new revelations," the psychiatrist said. "Later tonight. As soon as you are ready."

"Of course," Rei nodded, because she was used to this. If something happened it was only normal that she shared it with her psychiatrist. It was the only way she could get better.

There was a long pause in which none of them spoke. Only the big nurse shifted uncomfortably on the chair. It reminded her of Enji in that small plastic chair. The memory made her smile. "He changed," she acknowledged quietly.

The scar had been an obvious difference. It was a lot worse than Fuyumi had made it sound. From Fuyumi's words she had guessed he had just a straight scar cutting through his cheek and forehead, instead half his face was covered in ghastly dark scar tissue. But incredulously as it sounded, it hadn't been the most obvious change.

_He_ had changed. She couldn't quite explain it yet, but his whole demeanor was different now. Somehow… He looked at her differently. Before, she had just been a means to an end for him. That was what had made her so distraught, she knew now. It wasn't his occasional bouts of violence whenever she'd get between him and Shoto, it wasn't the fact that he talked down on her, or even that she felt she had no say in the matters concerning their family life. Those were all issues that made it worse, but for the most part, the thing that was the most painful to bear was his total disregard for her or their children.

Her husband had never hurt their family out of malevolence but carelessness. Somehow that had made it worse. It had made Enji blind to their concerns. If he had hurt them because of anger or because he just didn't like them… Maybe she would have been able to talk to him, appease him or even only protect the children, she thought, but the way it was, there was nothing she could do. She had been so helpless. She hadn't feared that he would someday come home and hurt Shoto with intent, but that he would come home and hurt him on accident, simply because he didn't care in his senseless pursuit of power.

And there was nothing she could do against this. There had been no avoiding him, no talking some sense into him or negotiating with him. For him, they were all just means to an end, if they couldn't fulfill their purpose, they were quickly discarded.

Thus, Rei had been forced to helplessly watch as her youngest son suffered through training harsher than anything a five-year-old boy should endure and how her other children tried in vain to gain their father's attention. And instead of getting better, it had gotten worse and worse with every year and every failure.

Now, she knew that at once, that was different. He saw her. They had actually _talked_. And not only that, he had agreed to the divorce.

She had, of course, already suspected that he must have changed, after he had started sending her flowers and after Fuyumi had told her some of the many ways in which family life was better nowadays – although Fuyumi hadn't talked much about this recently, being apparently angry with her father. But still, however much she had expected to see Enji Todoroki changed, it had been a shock to see it.

The good kind of shock.

"Natsuo said he would hold a press-conference today," Rei remembered what Natsuo had texted her just two days ago.

"Yes," Tanaka admitted, "it was in the afternoon."

"I'd like to see it," Rei decided.

"Are you sure?"

She was.

There were other, even more important things to attend to though. Touya… Her son.

"I need to…" Finally, she turned back towards the psychiatrist. "How long do you think, until I can get released from here?"

Tanaka stared at her with obvious surprise on her face. "You want to leave the facility?" She asked stunned.

"As soon as possible."

"Rei," the psychiatrist said carefully, "I'm not sure this is a good idea. You are still at risk."

"I will continue my treatment, of course," Rei relented, but her facial expression hardened in determination. "But I have to get released from here!" She had to.

"Of course, your stay here is not compulsory. If it is your wish to leave, we can start to work in that direction," Tanaka relented finally. "We'd have to change some of your treatment. But I implore you to think about this."

Rei sat down on the chair where Enji had sat before. Her husband's heat still lingered on the seat, she realized. "I appreciate your concern, but… Before, I couldn't leave because I would just have to go back to him. Now it is different."

"You are not divorced, yet," Tanaka reminded her calmly.

Rei had to admit to that. Still, it didn't persuade her to stay. She had to leave she knew. "My son is alive," she stated simply, "I can't be there for him as long as I am here."

Finally, Tanaka seemed to understand this. "Rei, your son is a villain. This will be very dangerous and even if he were repentant, he can't just move in with you."

But Rei shook her head. It didn't matter. None of this mattered. She didn't need Touya to move in with her or change his ways or repent, but she needed to know that if he needed her, she'd be there. For that, she needed her freedom, freedom she didn't have confined to a room of 16 square meters in a hospital with constant surveillance.

And it wasn't just Touya who needed her. What of Fuyumi who had apparently had a falling-out with her father; her only daughter, who had worked so hard for this family? What about Natsuo, her poor boy, who had been so lonely and desperate that he felt he had to fake his own kidnapping? What about Shoto, her youngest, who she had hurt so badly? Hadn't she in a way abandoned all of them?

Of course, logically she knew – and she had talked about this with her psychiatrist long and thoroughly enough to understand it at least on a rational level – that it hadn't been her fault. Yes, it had been her actions that had caused Shoto's injury. Yes, while Enji had been the one to put her in the hospital, it had been her choosing to stay as long as she did, even after the initial treatment. But she hadn't had full control of her actions, she knew this. And returning from the hospital wasn't an option, as she just would have to go back to the house, back to her life under her husband's careless abuse.

Still, even though she knew this, this didn't mean she didn't still feel guilty for it. At the end of the day, whatever she knew was true, emotionally it didn't feel right to blame everything on her abusive husband. These had been her actions and decisions. She had been too cowardly to go back to her abusive husband for her children's sake, or to leave him a long time ago and take the children with her. If she had been stronger…

There was lingering guilt that would last the rest of her lifetime.

But maybe, finally, she felt the strength to do something. She wouldn't go back to Enji Todoroki. But maybe she could start her own life, independent of him. They'd be forever bound to each other as the parents to her four beloved children, but she would not be bound to him through the ties of an oppressive marriage arranged with money and power anymore.

That way, finally, she could be there for her children again, actually _be_ there. Like a _mother_. And if Touya needed her… she'd be there for him too. For this she had to leave the hospital first.

"And what can you tell me about Dabi?" she asked after she had finally convinced Tanaka to work with her for her release.

Sadly though, neither Tanaka nor Matsumoto could tell Rei much of anything about the villain Dabi. They weren't, after all, concerned with Hero-business.

"I need internet access," Rei whispered to herself. It was a surprisingly sudden revelation. She would also need a TV. Rei was more or less up to date with the happenings of the outside world through the messages from Natsuo and Fuyumi. But that wouldn't be enough, if she wanted to have autonomy in her life again. After all this time, she had to show the courage to pursue her hunt for information on her own and not get her information filtered through her children's hands.

She realized then, that it would be a long process until she could finally be free again, standing on her own two feet. But still, she was determined to pursue this path.

* * *

**A/N **So, I hope I have more or less met Rei's character, the way you imagined her.

I also went a bit in how I imagined their first weeks of marriage to be. In my mind, Enji got worse and worse every year, with increasing frustration over not being able to catch up to All Might. It may have gotten a lot worse when the children developed their quirks and then escalated when Shoto developed his 'perfect' quirk. I always thought that the way Endeavor is portrayed in the manga and anime, it's most likely that before he started their training (so at least until Touya developed his quirk if he was trained as early as Shoto) Enji was a mostly 'absent' father, being a bit of a workaholic. I'd also assume that if you had asked Rei back then about what part of her husband she'd want to change, she might have wished for him to spend more time at home with the family. Of course, when Shoto (and maybe Touya) then developed his quirk and Enji did start to spend more time at home to train him, she would have probably taken that back.

I decided that when she married, she was still rather young, just barely into adulthood and suffering from inferiority complexes and lack of self-esteem. Enji, on the other hand, as one of the top heroes, twenty, tall, strong and brimming with confidence (at least at first glance) must have been a rather impressive figure for her. So I think she found him attractive, and impressive and was maybe a bit proud that he had chosen her as his wife, wanting to make right by him. I came up with that dynamic not to excuse any of his actions, but rather to explain how it could come that far. I think it is a lot more believable that Enji got increasingly impatient and angry, while she grew increasingly more dependent of him, compared to a scenario where he was just bad and evil from the start. I know many Fans and fanfiction authors seem to prefer that approach (from what I have read). However, I think that's to easy and wouldn't accurately represent the complex relationship between these two.

Also with the part, where Rei thinks about her 'guilt', I do not intend to insinuate that any of what had happened was her responsibility or within her control. It's quite obvious that Rei did not have control over her own mind when she hurt Shoto, so I wouldn't blame her for it. And I think to stay in the hospital for so long to get healthy rather than risking another breakdown always is the better choice. This part of the chapter was not about blaming her or anybody for these things, but I think from her own perspective, the fact that she could not be a mother to her children for so long due to these things hurt Rei a lot, and she feels guilty for that, whether it was her fault or not.

(I don't really know much about mental sicknesses or how to get treatment, but I assumed that for her to be FORCED to stay in the hospital, it either needs a court order or Enji must have through some process taken custody over her... Since none of that seemed to be the case or was ever mentioned in the Manga, I assumed that she (while maybe not initially going to the hospital of her own accord) chose to remain there for so long herself. Of course that's just assumption on my part.)

Next up, we'll probably get all the way back in time and see how Natsuo reacted when he first found out, that his diary is now public and for everybody to read.


	5. Natsuo II

**Hi there,**

Sorry for the delay, I hope all of you arrived in 2020 happy and healthy. I didn't and was promptly sick for a week. Now I'm back however and here finally is the promised Natsuo II chapter I talked about all the way back at Christmas.

Chronologically this chapter plays even before Shoto I and Natsuo I, so this is the very first chapter of the 'I'm Watching!' chapters, but I waited to post it now, because I didn't want to delve deeper into Natsuo's post-kidnapping-state before this was revealed in the main story. So while this should only be read after Chapter 25 "After Nineteen Years..." of the main story, keep in mind that chronologically it is only a few short days after the kidnapping happened.

* * *

**Natsuo II**

"BREAKING NEWS! Abuse in the Todoroki Family. Strongest National Hero under suspicion of spousal and parental abuse! - It is 23:14 – BREAKING NEWS! Abuse in the…"

Natsuo looked through the window of the bar in disbelief. He was in the middle of Musutafu, on his way home from training. His hair was still wet from the shower cooling his body temperature down in this fresh autumn breeze that it was almost a bit uncomfortable even for him, who had always preferred cold weather over smoldering heat.

"What are ya waiting for? Oi, Earth to Natsu!" Yamato called out to him, but Natsuo hardly reacted. His eyes were still glued on the TV, more specifically on the words rolling past the screen in an infinite loop.

How did they know? Why now?

It was late in the evening, already past sun-down but in the city, there was always light, so it was never really dark. Still, most parents would have already put their children to bed and the only people out on the streets on this Monday evening were some young people trying to have a fun time, even between work and school days, or people like him, who found their way home from a late training, outing with friends, a dinner at a restaurant with family, or late work-hours.

Yamato quickly made his way back where Natsuo had suddenly stopped walking to look into the bar. "What's going on?" He asked.

His brother Shiro followed him looking a bit annoyed. The brothers looked nothing alike. Shiro the younger was a tall gangly kid with knobbly knees and elbows and a resting pout on his puffy lips. He had long white hair that he always knotted in a tight ponytail with many hairpins holding back each strand during training. His quirk had something to do with his hair, Natsuo knew, but he had never really seen it in action. He hardly even knew Shiro aside from training, he was just Yamato's younger brother who didn't even really play in their team, but in the Under 18 youth team.

Yamato was one of his best friends. He had a short and bulky built, curly brown hair and striking green eyes. He wasn't particularly handsome, a protruding jaw, a skewed nose, thin lips, puckered skin, and bushy eyebrows. But his eyes were special. He knew that himself. He always bragged about how the girls after high school graduation had voted him 'most handsome male eyes'. They had also given him the least votes for 'most handsome male' overall, Shiro kept reminding him, making him officially the ugliest guy in his graduation class.

Shiro glanced into the bar, pressing his face against the window so that his breath clouded against the glass. "What is she talking about?" he asked as his eyes followed Natsuo's transfixed stare to the television. A woman with wavy black hair spoke onscreen – reading the news – but they couldn't hear anything from out here. "I can't hear anything," the white-haired boy complained.

It wasn't her words that had distracted him, but the text down in the news banner that had suddenly caught Natsuo's attention. Yamato was the first who seemed to realize that.

"Isn't he your father?" He asked confused. "What is going on?"

The question finally pulled Natsuo out of his shocked state. He glanced at Yamato.

"Wait! Your father!?" Shiro bellowed in surprise. They had never told him. Yamato knew Natsuo had told him, but in general, he liked talking about his father as little as possible. So, wherever he could get away with it, he liked to pretend, the shared surname was just an unfortunate coincidence. It helped that he had hardly inherited any of his father's prominent features, Natsuo thought.

"What did you think?" Yamato laughed at his brother's confusion. "He's called Todoroki. To-do-ro-ki, Idiot!" He hit his brother in the back of the head with the open palm. It was only a slight pat, but Shiro's head dipped forward hitting the tip of his nose against the glass of the window.

"Shit, idiot!" the brother reared back holding his nose in an exaggerated show of suffering. "How would I know, huh?"

"Use your head," Yamato started, but he stopped himself, as Natsuo suddenly turned and hurried away, down the street to their station, where he would take the train back to the campus. "Ah, wait up, Natsu! What's going on!?" Yamato bellowed as he hurried after him, leaving Shiro to trail after them.

He didn't explain anything, just kept quiet all the way to the metro station, where they parted ways. Yamato didn't live on campus anymore. Until last semester they had been neighbors in the dormitory; a few months ago, Yamato had moved together with his girlfriend.

Natsuo had been a bit disappointed back then when his best friend had moved away, but now, he was almost thankful for it. He wanted to be alone, and if Yamato still essentially lived with him, he couldn't have gotten rid of him that easily. This way, he could just fake that he was okay, and although Yamato gave him worried looks and offered to just dump his brother and join Natsuo, maybe sleep at his place – "We didn't have a proper movie-night together since forever! We could finally watch Jurassic Park!" – in the end, Natsuo made his way home alone.

In his room in the dorm, he started pacing. How had the news channel found out about his family? They had never found out before! Did that flaming garbage can, that was his father, know?

He felt bad, almost immediately as he thought about him. Endeavor was still in the hospital recovering from whatever Touya and his friends had done to him. It was Natsuo's fault that he was…

So what?! He gritted his teeth in anger. It wasn't his fault Endeavor decided to go, was it? He hadn't made him sacrifice himself! He should have just stayed at home!

It was all wrong.

Everything was wrong!

Yesterday Fuyumi had called and told him, their father would live. Had it been that bad? Had Touya really almost… No reason to feel bad about it! It hadn't been Natsuo's fault after all! It hadn't been!

He pulled at his hair, as he dropped heavily on his bed that was still messy from last night. If it wasn't his fault, why the fuck did he feel so guilty?

This was all messed up! He wasn't supposed to feel sorry for Endeavor! He wasn't supposed to feel guilty for something HE had done to his father after all his life Endeavor had…

It wasn't right! This was so wrong, thinking about it gave him headaches. It made him sick! Why was he supposed to feel bad for Endeavor, when Endeavor had never felt bad for anything he had done? Had he not taken his own mother away from Natsuo? Had he not isolated his brothers? All his life, had he not ignored Natsuo, never looked at him if it was not strictly necessary, never acknowledged anything he had done, ridiculed him for his failures and weaknesses? It wasn't fair!

It wasn't right, it wasn't fair, and it didn't make any fucking sense!

His father had not cared about him for years and now all of a sudden…

The world hadn't known nor cared about what happened behind their doors for years, and now all of a sudden…

Why would they suddenly know? Who told them!? Did they really know? Or did they just think they knew?

He still remembered when he was a child. Had he ever been courageous enough, to tell anybody? No, he was a coward, Endeavor had at least that part right. A failure and weak and a coward! So he never told anybody, not outright at least. It wasn't like anybody wanted to hear or was interested in hearing about the tragedy that was his family life.

He still remembered the adults and teachers in elementary school or even some of the maids! The fucking maids, they were right in the house with them, didn't they see anything. Yet they acted blind and deaf and stupid!

_Did you celebrate the holidays with your parents?_

_No, Dad never celebrates the holidays with us._

_Ah, did he have to work? I know, your Daddy is a great hero! He saves many lives; you should be proud of him._

_Dad hates me._

_Oh, I'm sure he doesn't._

_He never spends time with me._

_He probably works a lot, huh? He's got a very important job to do. He's keeping us all safe, after all._

_He never even looks at me._

_Aw, that can't be true! I'm sure he's just busy._

_He only ever spends time with Shoto!_

_Shoto? That's your brother, right? You should not be jealous of your brother. That's not nice._

_I'm not…_

_Natsu… Darling, there is no need to be jealous of him. I'm sure if you just talked to your father, you…_

_HE WOULDN'T LISTEN!_

_Now, stop yelling at me! We can talk civilly, right?_

_YOU DON'T LISTEN EITHER!_

Had he ever talked to anybody about his problems? No. But would they have listened? He knew the answer to that.

_Aww, Natsu, your Dad's Endeavor, that's so cool! Can you give me an autograph! I'm sure you must have some exclusive stuff. That would be awesome!_

_Don't be such a kill-sport, Natsu! I'm sure he'd give you a dozen autographs if you just asked! Come on, we're best friends!_

_You didn't even ask him, Natsu! Just ask him! That would be so cool! Maybe I could meet him, what do you think? Will he be there for your birthday?_

There was a reason he never told anybody anymore who his father was.

And now, the press knew. And maybe he had always waited for this moment, but now of all times, Endeavor was still in the hospital, treated for injuries he had received from… torture, Fuyumi had said. Torture and he had almost died, to save Natsuo who wasn't even in danger.

Maybe it would have been better if he were in danger. He wouldn't have to feel so painfully guilty. He might have hurt himself, maybe been in the hospital, maybe traumatized, but at least he had an excuse. He could have stayed a few days in the hospital, visited a psychiatrist, sought council and Fuyumi's nagging worry wouldn't make him feel so bad. Maybe that would have been better.

Maybe then he would feel better? He wouldn't have to feel that guilt and shame and this other feeling, this stupid, shameful, pathetic anxiety that made his eyes travel between his door and phone and the news day in day out waiting for the moment, when the police or Fuyumi or Shoto realized… Or when Endeavor was healthy enough that he could testify and tell them how he, Natsuo himself had faked his own kidnapping, collaborated with the League of Villains to get the Number One Hero killed.

It was just a matter of time, and then what? What was the punishment for faking his kidnapping, for collaborating with a group of villains this widely notorious…? He had googled them, embarrassed and afraid once he found out who they were. How had he not known that before? How could he have been so blind? Would they send people to Tartarus for that? What was the punishment for collaboration to murder his own father who just happened to be a hero?

It was just a matter of days until the police – or maybe even a hero – would kick his door in and they would drag him off to interrogation for the sin of sheer stupidity. And he deserved it! Gods, maybe that would make it easier! Just admit to what he had done, go to prison for it, and at least from behind the bars he could go back to rightfully hating Endeavor and not feel so goddamn confused.

He finally moved from his bed to his desk, opened his notebook and searched for the news. What had they found out about his family? He needed to know.

For years, Natsuo had avoided his father's media presence as well as he could. He had even gone so far as to avoid news about heroes altogether, just so he didn't have to read some ignorant civilian fawning over Endeavor, just so he didn't have to read about Endeavor's deeds and feel conflicted over how somebody so heroic could simultaneously be so terrible. It was difficult in this day and age to keep away from heroes and villains, they were everywhere, everybody loved them, and even beyond just their hero work, they dominated competitive sports, pop-culture, and politics. But over the years, he had managed it quite well. Yamato kept him up to date about the most pressing matters, but they didn't talk about Endeavor if it wasn't necessary.

Now, for the first time in forever, he ventured out looking for news about his father. Somebody, an anonymous source, had sent information to a news channel. He quickly gathered that much. Maybe it was a fake, people were still speculating. Apparently, the media had gotten their hands on some very incriminating documents.

His diaries.

The handwritten document that was sent in a printed copy to now four different national news agencies is believed to be the Diary of Endeavor's own son, Natsuo Todoroki. He read the sentence three times before it really registered in his head. The legitimacy of the document and the truthfulness of the contents could not yet be confirmed.

Touya… it had to have been Touya! How could he?!

Shocked to his core he couldn't do anything other than reading on, click through multiple articles, forums, until he found himself on Twitter. The topic was already trending in all of Japan. The news had just been made public an hour ago, the first copies had apparently been sent just this night, but everybody and their mother already seemed to be talking about this.

The opinions he realized were diverse. Some were doubting the authenticity of the diary, some were trying to see this all from a pragmatic and objective point of view, but most were raging, demanding answers, demanding to know where Endeavor was hiding his cowardly ass. Some were expressing their sympathies for Natsuo and his siblings, and others were increasingly asking and speculating about his mother. She was dead, she was raped, she was probably in on the abuse, they were divorced; nobody knew the mother… wild guesses were everywhere, from ludicrous to almost close to the truth.

Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He smashed the notebook close almost a bit too hard. Natsuo realized he was panting heavily, as if he had just run a marathon. And it wasn't the exhaustion from his soccer training that was still lingering. This was rage, he realized.

He could hear sounds from his next-door neighbor. Maybe he was playing a computer game or something, it sounded like it, and every now and then he could hear the boy cursing through the walls. Above him, the boy who lived there always stomped his feet on the way to the bathroom. And below him, somebody smoked on the balcony. Every now and then he could see wafts of cigarette smoke pass by his closed window. The room he was in was small. Just a bed, a desk, a table, a bookshelf and a big closet in one corner. The side opposite to the door, there was a big window. To his left, there was a door leading to a small bathroom. It was just an ordinary student dormitory, but it was entirely his own. He lived here for almost two years already, and he loved it.

Natsuo had grown up in a huge house that had always been too big and yet never big enough. When he was younger, people could come and go, even live in the same house, without having to spend much time together. It was too big because it had made him feel lonely, back when he had still wanted his parents' attention. He had almost been afraid to get lost in it, and then nobody would find him, because they wouldn't care enough to look for him or even register that he was gone. Later, it could not be big enough. No matter how big the house was, the walls were thin, and no matter where in the house he was, he could always hear his mother's or Shoto's cries. It was maddening.

The dormitory was different. Sometimes he could hear noises from the people around him, conversations, parties, fights or just a single person listening to music or reading loudly to themselves, but it was still private enough. This was his place; here he was safe. And Endeavor was far away. He had never come to visit, and to Natsuo, there was no need to change that.

Had the people around him also read those articles about his father? Some articles had even published old family pictures. The boys living around him, could they recognize him from the pictures? Would they knock and ask and…

He looked at his phone. Gods, how could Touya betray him so?

Only now as he looked at it for the first time after training, he realized the many new messages Fuyumi had sent him over the last two hours.

"Natsuuu! Dad woke up today! Come on. Shoto and I visit tomorrow, why don't you come, too?" There was a praying emoji at the end.

"Are you going to visit Mom? What do you wanna tell her?"

"Did you already think about what to tell Mom?"

"Hey… did you see the News? You're probably still in training. Watch the news when you're back home and call me. I don't know where they got that information from." There were two emojis attached to the last message. A shocked and a concerned yellow face.

Natsuo stared at the messages, his fingers hovering over the call button next to her name, but then instead he typed his reply.

"Just saw the news. That's my diary." He sent the message.

He stared at the words stupidly, after they were already sent. In shock, he almost let the phone fall to the ground, when it pinged with her reply almost instantly.

"What? How did they get it?"

"The League must have sent it. Endeavor brought it…" He started typing, but then his mind stopped blank. He would have to tell her about Touya, about his own involvement. He had told the police that he didn't know anything about his father's deal with the League to get him free… And it had only been by coincidence that he had listened in on Touya telling their father that he should bring the diary with him. Back then he had just been mildly annoyed with his brother's dramatics. Now though…

He had the reply already completely written out, explaining who the villain Dabi was, that he had been in on this whole thing and that he had lied to the police. "I promise I didn't know they'd…" He typed as he suddenly reached the sign limit for the message. His finger hovered over the text he had already written out, correcting some mistakes and grammar but failing to shorten it in any significant way.

And then he deleted the entire text. It was done in a matter of seconds. "I don't know."

He stared at the words as if he couldn't believe he had really sent them. It was too late to take them back.

"You have to know something."

His grip tightened around his phone angrily. Why was he such a coward? Why was he the only one in his family who was such a coward? He pressed the edge of the phone against his forehead, realizing that he was tearing up. Stop it!

He was about to throw the phone against the wall, but what would that do? Exhausted, his shoulders hunched over. "Sorry" He wrote, not knowing if he was apologizing for 'not knowing' or for lying to her.

"Not your fault" Her reply came immediately. Then: "I'll just ask Dad tomorrow. Maybe he knows." Despair was the best way to describe how he felt. "Can I call you? I really wanna talk?"

He needed a while to compose himself enough to answer. "Sorry, I'm super tired."

The pause was longer now, then the phone pinged again, the display lit up and her last message flickered on the screen. "K Tomorrow then..."

He didn't even click on that message to mark it as 'read', just waited until the display went black again.

Why had he not told her the truth? Of course, it was a stupid question. He was so ashamed! And now, even more so. Fuyumi would have never lied to him like that. Of course, she also wouldn't collaborate with villains to get their father murdered. That was all him.

He stared at the phone's black display for so long, he almost forgot why he had initially pulled his phone out. Then he switched it on again, put in his code to unlock it, scrolled through his contacts and selected 'Big Bro'.

It rang three times, four, five. He was about to end the call when somebody picked up on the other end.

"Natsu?" exactly the voice he had been hoping to hear. It had made him safe earlier. For the last years and months, ever since he had found out Touya wasn't really dead two years ago, he had called his brother for all his big and small problems. Good grades, bad grades, advice with girls, his grievances when Fuyumi was a bit too mothering or his frustration with their scumbag of a father. Touya had listened to all of it.

Touya had been his consultant for all this time when there was nobody else to turn to. Not his mother, because he didn't want to worry her, not Shoto, because he was too young, and really, Natsuo hardly knew him. Sure as hell not to their father. Fuyumi… of course, he could talk to her, but he didn't want to burden her with all his stuff. She already shouldered so much. She wanted him to be happy, and she sacrificed so much to make that true. She even stayed in that rotten house, even after she turned eighteen because somebody had to be there for Shoto and if she was, Natsuo didn't have to. He knew she wanted him to be happy, and sometimes, he just didn't want to tell her, when he was not.

So, there was only Touya. Touya was difficult. He didn't want anybody to know that he was still alive, not their father, of course, but also not their mother or siblings. Why? Natsuo had never really received an answer. But he had respected his brother's wish. Because it was Touya, his big brother, who surely had a good reason for what he did. And if he said that he just needed a bit more time, to deal with some stuff he had to deal with, to seek treatment for his scars so Mom and Fuyu wouldn't get a heart attack when they saw him, to repay a debt he owed… It didn't really matter to Natsuo, none of it mattered, but in the end, he agreed to keep Touya's secret, let him reveal himself when he was ready.

How stupid he was? And a liar! And a coward!

This was all so messed up.

"Natsu?" Touya repeated questioning his voice wavering in uncertainty. "Is that you?"

"Yeah," he only whispered his reply after what seemed like an eternity. Why was he even calling? Had he not done enough? If anybody still needed proof that he was really in with the League, that was just the evidence they would hope for.

"Oh thank god," muttered Touya, "for a second I thought they were on to us."

"The police?" Natsuo asked, even though that was obvious. His voice was quiet, sounding the way he felt. Tired, exhausted and dead inside. "Why didn't you tell me?"

What a stupid question.

"I couldn't," Touya muttered. It actually sounded apologetic and sincere. "You know I couldn't."

"I never…," Natsuo muttered, not sure how to end that sentence.

"Look, it's better that way," Touya surmised, "even if they catch on to you, you can just claim ignorance, okay."

"Why?"

"You know I couldn't tell you…," Touya sounded exasperated now.

"Why did you do that?" Natsuo specified. He didn't really care, why Touya hadn't told him. Truth be told, in hindsight he was thankful. Ignorance was bliss. He almost wished he had never found out. "How could you…! He almost died."

Touya kept silent for a few minutes.

"Look, Natsu, I told you about what I would do."

"You didn't tell me anything!" Natsuo got angry now. If Touya had told him, he wouldn't have helped. How could Touya have thought Natsuo would agree with that? With murder?! "You just used me!"

"I didn't use you!" Touya defended vehemently. "I'm just trying to help. It didn't work out this time, but next time, we'll—"

"NEXT TIME!?" Natsuo cried out enraged. He was too loud, he knew it immediately, and his neighbor baning against the wall didn't help. Immediately he lowered his voice. He didn't want to be overheard. "There won't be a next time! I won't… I can't! You lied to me!"

"I told you, we would finally get rid of all our problems!" There was so much conviction in Touya's voice, it was sickening.

"You think this is how you-?"

"WHAT DID YOU THINK?!" Touya screamed into the phone, making Natsuo freeze in shock. He had never heard him this angry. "You're so naïve! I'm just trying to help! You and Fuyumi, you'll never be free of him as long as he's alive!"

"You can't mean that," Natsu cried out. "That's murder!"

"So, what!?" Touya challenged. "There are worse things than murder! I almost did it! I was so close!"

Had Touya always been like this?

"That's sick!" Natsu cried out.

"You just can't see the bigger picture! If you hadn't called the police, we would already be free of him!"

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. This wasn't Touya. It was some impostor, a fake. He was all wrong! His brother was kind and righteous and just, not… not like this.

"You think it's my fault?" he heard himself cry out in anger.

"Of course, it's your fault!" Touya bellowed into the phone. "If you hadn't…! It could have all worked out. Damn, Natsu, why did you not—" He cut himself off. "But it's fine. I understand you were shocked. You just can't see it the way I do yet. But I promise everything will be fine." The way he spoke to Natsuo, as if he were a kid, and for a moment Natsuo felt like one too. How could he have been so stupid?

"Fine?" Natsuo repeated disbelievingly. How could any of this ever be 'fine' again?

"I'll liberate you. I'll liberate all of us."

The worst thing was, he sounded as if he actually believed it. There was so much conviction there.

"Did you send my diary to the news channels?" Natsuo finally asked tiredly.

"So you saw? What do you think? It's not what I planned, but we can ruin him with that too. I think. We can do it together."

He was mad. Natsuo realized. He wasn't just a villain, a murderer, an arson… what he had read on the internet. He was mad. Lost… There was no reasoning with him.

"You made my diary public?" he asked again.

"Yeah," Touya said, "it's all out in the open now. If the agencies for once do their job and not play any favorites… Well, even if he may stay a free man, the public will tear him to shreds. Did you see what they are writing on social media? They finally see him the way he really is?"

"You gave them my diary for some public outrage?" He couldn't believe this. He felt so betrayed. And he felt stupid, that after everything that had happened, after Touya trying to murder their father and making Natsu an accomplice in it… after everything, it was this, the straw that broke the camel's back.

The ultimate betrayal. "I trusted you," Natsuo cried. Tears were streaking down his face and he felt utterly pathetic. "Did you ever think, that I did not want my fucking diary out in the open for everybody to read?"

"Natsu…," Touya muttered. He sounded as if he felt at least a little bad. "I know, it's not ideal, but—"

"NOT IDEAL?! Not ideal!" Natsuo interrupted. "Those are my private thoughts."

"But it's working," Touya defended his actions. "Don't you see? We can ruin him together, bro? This may even be better than killing him."

"So, if you wanted the public to tear him to shreds, why didn't you send them your own story, huh?!" Natsuo's voice was so loud, he was sure the neighbors could hear every word. He didn't care about listeners anymore. He was so angry! The whole dormitory would probably listen in. But who the fuck cared? It wasn't like his diary was already public, anyway. Touya didn't answer immediately. "Huh?!" Natsuo challenged, "why not send them your fucking story instead of my diary?"

"Mother and Fuyumi—" Touya started, but Natsuo had enough of that.

"Stop it! Stop your excuses! Mom and Fuyumi wouldn't give two shits about your scars! You told me that was the reason, you couldn't see them, right? But now, I know better. You're a fuckin killer, Touya! You're mad and you can't even see what's right in front of you!"

"Natsu—"

"Shut up! How could I have been so stupid?! Was it fun, huh? Playing with me?"

"We weren't playing—"

"Then why the fuck did you hook me up with Haruka? Toga, I guess, not that you ever properly introduced me!"

"I didn't hook you up with Toga!" Touya cried out, angry from his end. What the fuck had he to be angry about? "They didn't even know we were siblings until you blurted it out in front—"

"FUCK YOU!" Natsuo was fuming. "You used me! I'm done! Don't call me again!"

"NA—"

He ended the call and threw the phone as far away from him as the small room allowed before Touya could finish more than one last syllable. The phone cracked against the wall and clattered to the ground. It remained in one piece, but he didn't really care. He just let it lay there while he hunched in on himself, sobbing.

How the fuck had his life suddenly turned so wrong?

* * *

So, I hoped that helped to delve, yet a bit deeper into Natsuo's psyche and what he thinks about all the things happening around him. I also tried to give a bit more background information about how the whole 'Natsuo, Dabi, Toga'-Situation came to be. I will probably dive even deeper into the relationship between these three in an upcoming Touya-chapter... That one isn't written yet, though and I don't quite know how I want it to turn out or what I want to happen there, but when I asked you guys what you were interested in, Touya/Dabi came up most of the time.

I have to admit, at the moment, Endeavor aside Natsuo is my favorite Todoroki to write. Maybe it is because he is similar to Endeavor in temper but more innocent in nature that makes this so exciting. At the moment of all the kids (Touya aside) he also has the most on his plate, I think, dealing with his guilt. It was a bit accidental, I have to admit. When I first started writing this story, I didn't really intend to focus so much on the individual Todoroki children the way I do now. Especially Natsuo was first just a means to an end to get the plot rolling. Now, however, his complex feelings towards his Dad and siblings are really exciting to explore and I hope you share my excitement for it.

On a different note, my betareader is officially back now and slowly working herself through the past chapters, so if there are some updates in old chapters in the future don't be too shocked. This chapter was not yet beta-read, but I didn't want to wait with the update for longer than necessary.


	6. Izuku I

This is a follow-up chapter to Chapter 28 "Flashfire".

* * *

**Izuku I**

He had expected many things to happen as he watched Todoroki and his father leave for a more private place to talk. Izuku waited with the rest of Class 1-A, silently sharing their worry.

It was clear from all their faces what most of his classmates thought about Endeavor being alone with his son. They didn't like it. After the abuse that Todoroki and his siblings had suffered under their father had become public knowledge – though still nobody knew everything and there was much hidden between the lines of Endeavor's most recent interview – his classmates hadn't taken it very well. What could you expect?

Finding out your classmate and friend, the guy who now lived in the same building as you in the dormitories and who trained to be a hero with you, suffered from abuse and you didn't know. And even now, you only know what the media say, and they seem to change their story every few minutes.

Kaminari was probably the bigger Endeavor fan in class. It was something Izuku hadn't even known before. He himself was a real fanboy of things hero-related, especially of All Might. Everybody knew; and if they hadn't known before they moved into the dorms, they surely knew after — as Midoriya's idea of decoration had been to put All Might's colors all over the walls and doors and furniture. He felt safe that way, but it had been a bit embarrassing when his classmates saw his room. Maybe it was even more obvious because he was always around All Might these days.

With the others, it was less obvious who they liked and who their idols were. He hadn't known Kirishima was a Crimson Riot fan until the boy had picked his hero name. Of course, Iida admired his brother, who had been known as Ingenium before the Hero Killer had ended his career.

And Kacchan liked All Might too, because he was the strongest and he always won.

But that was it. He hadn't known anybody in his class had been a fan of Endeavor in particular, until one day they had found a bunch of hero merchandise in the trash can outside their dorms. Later on, he found out it was Kaminari's stuff. Now, Kaminari hated Endeavor most of all.

Sometimes Izuku had the impression that Kaminari hated Endeavor more than even Todoroki. And that was really the great epiphany he had had these last couple of weeks. It was over a month ago that the truth about Endeavor had come out, and where there had been admiration before, now a deep resentment had settled within most of his classmates. It was long enough ago, that it wasn't even questioned anymore. Endeavor abusing his son was a fact that after Endeavor's public admittance last week, nobody dared to still deny or question. Of course, it was good that way, Izuku thought.

What was not so good, he thought, was that after the facts had settled, hatred had festered. Within just a few weeks, Endeavor had turned from the number one hero who could not quite hold up to All Might, to the number one enemy of Class 1-A. The only problem was, Todoroki didn't seem to agree.

Nobody else seemed to realize this, but to Izuku, it seemed obvious that Endeavor didn't even know about Class 1-A's hatred and he probably couldn't care less what some UA first years thought about him. On the other hand, Todoroki knew, and he was hurting, because while he had hated Endeavor for most of his life, Izuku was sure that there was an increasing part of him who couldn't help but look forward to this reluctant change Endeavor seemed to go through.

He never said it out loud, but Izuku knew, and he had known it back during the fight in Fukuoka too, that whenever Endeavor was in action, Todoroki silently cheered him on. Not because he didn't hate him still, but because there was a part of him who couldn't help but hope.

So, when father and son went to talk in private, Izuku could guess his classmates' thoughts. How they must be internally cursing Endeavor. How they might wish to get an opportunity to tell him or, better yet, show him how they felt about him. How they itched to follow and drag Todoroki away from the abuser, to protect and shield him from the inevitable hurt.

Izuku could guess what they felt, and he honestly felt the same, but there was also that part of him that held out hope. For Todoroki's sake, and for Endeavor's too.

He had expected many things to happen after Todoroki and Endeavor had gone out of view. He had expected the drama, the hurt, the tears, the tentative hope. He had not expected to suddenly hear Todoroki's laugh, loud and hysterical and grating against his ears. He immediately started running, worried and perplexed what might have caused this reaction.

Finding them was no trouble at all with how loud Todoroki was laughing. They didn't exactly hide from sight either. Soon after he left the dormitory, he could see them seated on a bench just outside Class 1-B's dormitory. Todoroki stood, his head thrown back, laughing into the skies… or was he crying? It was hard to make out the difference in the way his shoulders shook with every ugly giggle. Endeavor sat beside him, stunned, flushed red in embarrassment and obviously almost as perplexed as Izuku felt.

It was only five minutes later, when Endeavor had already left looking as if he couldn't wait to get away from the scene, and when Todoroki had started to calm down a little, that Izuku could ask what had happened.

"He won't teach me Flashfire," Todoroki answered in an angry voice while he was still grinning as if he was talking about something entirely too funny.

"What do you mean, he won't? I thought he always wanted to train you?" His confusion only increased with this new explanation.

"Yeah, me too. Uh, I'm sorry," he said in a mocking tone. "Did I say 'he won't'? I meant, 'he can't'!" He giggled a bit quieter this time.

"He can't?" Izuku repeated, still confused. "Can't he make time for it?"

"It's not about time." Now as he giggled again, he was overwhelmed by a sudden hiccup. "You don't understand, he just can't. Apparently, he can't use it anymore."

Izuku froze in shock. What? "He can't use it anymore?" he repeated, feeling stupid for just parroting Todoroki's words. "Is he still injured?" His battle with the Nomu was only one and a half months ago, he quickly calculated, and then there was this other business with the League when he had almost died, which had been right after the attack in Fukuoka. When Todoroki's brother had been kidnapped. Could it be, he still hadn't recovered? Best Jeanist hadn't recovered from his wounds against All For One yet either, and that was five months ago! But he hadn't even known that…

He must have seemed distracted because Todoroki leveled him with an annoyed glare. "Don't think that hard about it, he's not injured. He just doesn't know how to use it."

"How so?"

"Beats me. But I mean, that's really just perfect, isn't it?" He bellowed a single bout of laughter. "He's tried to force me to train with him for years. All my life! And now that I need his help! And he can't even bother to try." Izuku watched him fist his hands and grit his teeth in anger. "You know, when I was 8 and I told him I couldn't do Flashfire, he'd punch me and tell me to try harder, until I was vomiting on the floor; and now he can't even bother to try!? That's just perfect!"

"He can't use Flashfire anymore?" Izuku was still stuck on that part. "Like at all?"

"It's hilarious, really… If they only knew! The people… What a joke! Maybe we should just tell them!"

"You want to tell the media?" Izuku asked, aghast. "Are you mad?"

"Why? They're asking for an interview practically daily, why not just give them what they want? And then he'd know how it feels to be seen as weak! You know, when I was 8, he told me I was weak for not being able to use Flashfire. Well, he's almost fifty and he can't use it!" He giggled again as if he was drunk on… something. "Serves him right, if they see him for as weak as he is!"

Izuku couldn't believe what he was hearing. There was a deep panic settling within him. "You can't!" he exclaimed. "They'll eat him alive if they find out, never mind…" he hesitated when Todoroki turned to look at him with a questioningly raised eyebrow. "The League, I mean. And other heroes. He just barely defeated that Noumu in Fukuoka with Flashfire and Hawks' help. But he won, and now at least… no matter how much we all might hate him, at least he does his job again and keeps us safe. Sure, most people hate him and there are a bunch of new villains just because of him, but they still fear him. That's the only thing he has going for him!" Todoroki seemed about to say something, but Izuku was stuck in his panicked rambling. "I mean I understand what he did, and he really doesn't deserve any of the glory of being the number one, but he currently is. And if they neither love nor fear him, that would be a catastrophe, not just for him! The League might just decide to send the next Noumu, knowing they have essentially free game. We can't…"

"I know!" Todoroki interrupted loudly. "Gods, Midoriya, I'm not stupid, I know… Don't worry, I won't out him, it's just… It makes me so angry. Why does it have to happen now?"

Izuku breathed in heavily after having spoken so much and so fast. He felt honest relief and Todoroki's understanding. He also felt like a fool, that he had really feared Todoroki might actually go to the media. For a moment, he had honestly thought that Todoroki's personal grudge and anger might make him overlook the bigger picture. But of course, Todoroki was smart.

"Why now of all times? For years, if he could have just forgotten about Flashfire before, it would have spared me so much pain. But now that I actually want him to… NEED him to train me, he suddenly can't use it anymore. It's so unfair."

Izuku nodded, finally understanding the core of Todoroki's anger. Maybe he wasn't even angry at Endeavor himself at the moment. Whatever had happened to make him lose Flashfire, it was likely not his own fault and must surely devastate the number one hero. Maybe he wasn't angry at Endeavor at all, but the whole situation, the unfairness of it all.

"It's all wrong," Todoroki muttered, "and you're right — I can't even tell anybody."

"You can tell me," Izuku offered with a smile. "I'll listen, I promise."

Todoroki looked at him, then smiled a little. Finally, that hysteric edge was gone from his smile. "I know," he said quietly. "I know."

They sat on that bench for a while. The students from Class 1-B, who had looked over to them when Todoroki had burst out in his ugly laughter, were long gone, leaving them to their privacy. Todoroki looked up into the canopy of the peach tree above them. He stretched his legs a little. Izuku just watched him. It seemed he had finally calmed down. Now instead of worrying, Izuku became increasingly aware of the December cold around them. He didn't ask Todoroki if he wanted to go back inside though, and Todoroki probably didn't even feel the cold. After all, with his quirk he would hardly bother about such a mild temperature.

So, they just sat there for a while in the light of the late December sun. Izuku's thoughts had started drifting back to Endeavor and his inability to use Flashfire. How mortifying that must be. Izuku himself had just received his quirk, not even a year ago. He had trained so hard to use it to the extent he could now. Every step on the way felt triumphant, but it was hard-earned through hours of training and even broken bones. He couldn't imagine how it would feel to one day wake up and find out he was back to zero and had somehow forgotten everything. To still have his quirk, but have lost so much process.

It must have felt like this for Endeavor, he realized, feeling suddenly sorry for him. He had probably just woken up one day, tried to use his quirk and realized it didn't listen to him anymore the way it used to. And it wasn't just the work of a year that was lost to him.

"Oh wow, most of his attacks are developed using Flashfire," Izuku muttered, and he hadn't even realized he had spoken out loud, until Todoroki turned to him with a questioning look.

"Ah, eh, sorry, I didn't mean to…," he tried apologizing, waving wildly in the air and blushing from embarrassment that he had started with his mumblings again. And when Todoroki had such a hard time. Surely he must think Izuku didn't care about him enough to stay focused and…

"No," Todoroki interrupted Izuku's panicked thoughts, "what do you mean?" His curiosity seemed genuine.

"I just thought, well…" Izuku scratched his head in even more embarrassment, "you know, your father. I'm, ah, you know I always try to learn everything about heroes I can find and… well, anyway, I just realized that most of your father's attacks are derived from Flashfire."

"Hmm," Todoroki grunted in affirmation.

"I mean his entire standard move-set is using Flashfire, right? Flashfire Fist, Jet Burn, Hell Spider… all his super moves are using Flashfire." Izuku explained further. "I mean… Well, I think Prominence Burn isn't using Flashfire, and his blue fire that he uses sometimes, but that's really all I can think of."

"No, but Prominence Burn and Blue Fire are even hotter than Flashfire. So, if he can't reach Flashfire, no chance in hell he can still use Prominence Burn," Todoroki muttered quietly.

"So, his entire set of super-moves is essentially gone." Izuku didn't even dare speak louder than in a hushed whisper for fear of somebody listening in. He trusted that there was no danger that anybody in UA would give this information to the public, but still… the implications of what that must mean. "He used those moves for years."

"Decades," Todoroki grunted. "If what he told me back when he wanted me to learn it is anywhere close to the truth, his Flashfire Fist was a super-move he developed in his third year in UA."

Izuku stared at him in utter shock. Forget about a year's worth of training, imagine you had lost decades worth! How could he even still do his job as the number one hero and be believable in his role, when he was essentially thrown back to his UA-times in terms of quirk control. Sure, he must have gained loads of experience in those decades, but what difference could experience alone make if the skills weren't there anymore?

"It must be horrible for him," Izuku voiced his thoughts out loud.

Todoroki remained quiet for a while, then he nodded. "I can't even imagine. He was always so proud… the proudest. His strength was everything to him… I mean…" Todoroki looked away from Izuku and up into the sky. "Part of me thinks that it serves him right after everything. But I couldn't even imagine…"

"I can," Izuku muttered. He hadn't meant to say it, but it had just slipped out. In a way, that was his nightmare. Before all this Endeavor scandal had started, even before Fukuoka, Sir Nighteye had died and Izuku had thought about giving his quirk to Mirio. It had been such a frightening decision to make. For months now, that was really his nightmare. That he might lose One For All, that he wasn't worthy of it after all, that he'd fail and never master the quirk. He had dreamed of waking up quirkless again. He had dreamed of breaking his bones again, of a time when he hadn't been able to control it to the point he does now. Of fighting All For One before and his quirk failing him, being crushed by the enemy's overwhelming force.

That must be it for Endeavor, he thought, and then he wondered how he could even still sleep at night when any day a villain could attack and he might not be able to beat them. And that might not even be a Nomu or the League of Villains, but a guy like Chisaki or Stain or anybody really. Even enemies he might be able to defeat with ease at his former level would suddenly be able to kill him.

Did that knowledge terrify him and keep him awake at night, as Izuku's own fears of failure often did?

Or was he just or confident and proud that he would not fear such an event? But could that really be possible?

How could he not be terrified?

"He probably feels pretty weak right now," Todoroki said after another silent pause between them. "And I know for a fact there is nothing he hates more than being weak. He's terrified of it."

The way he said it, he didn't sound sympathetic nor gleeful. He just stated it like a fact. And Izuku was sure, that's what it was. The idea was frightening, unbelievable even, considering everything he knew about the man, but – and how could it be any different?

The Flame Hero: Endeavor, the current number one was utterly terrified at the moment.

Izuku had always known why All Might smiled so much, even before he had met the man who was his idol. Through his smile, he assured the people that everything was alright, that everything would be okay, that he was here and had everything under control. And because he smiled while stating all these things, people believed him. They felt safe because they knew he was there, and he could handle everything.

After he had met his idol, he had started doubting this idea sometimes. Not him… Never him. But he had seen his horrible wound destroying his internal organs and slowly killing him. How could he smile when he carried around such pain? When his strong form had crumbled around him against All for One on national TV… How could he still reassure that he was there when he looked as if he was dying? When he had left behind and lost his master and then his former sidekick?

It was only now, he realized, for real how quintessentially important it was to smile and act as if everything was under control. It was only now, that he truly understood.

Because now, he knew that the Number One was terrified and that knowledge alone was terrifying by itself.

"Nobody can know," he whispered, suddenly paranoid that people might have listened in, that they might already know, that they might have seen it on TV or that the next villain attack would make his weakness obvious.

"I know," Todoroki answered, "I know."

* * *

This is my first Izuku chapter, and just overall I never really wrote Midoriya in any capacity - never mind as a PoV character. So tell me how you like it and what parts of his character I might not have hit well enough.

Also, I got the idea of writing this chapter from Izuku's PoV from a reader over at AO3.


	7. Rei II

Since my social life is now pretty much on hold, since - as of today - pretty much all the shops close anyway... I thought I could get some writing done.

I hope you like it!

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**Rei II**

After Enji had left last evening, Rei had hardly even been able to sleep. Tanaka-sensei and a nurse had kindly helped her set up everything she needed to at least get a WiFi connection into her room soon. She just needed a new computer, something to receive the signal that would enable her to do her own internet research. Of course, Tanaka-sensei insisted that they did it slowly. She wanted to install a safety lock on the device that would filter graphic content as well as content that would be difficult for her personally to stomach. Of course, there would always be risks and roundabouts and it would significantly complicate her research about both Endeavor and the villain called Dabi, as Tanaka surely saw both as potentially difficult topics for Rei. But it would be a step forward, nonetheless.

Rei was really looking forward to next week. She wanted to choose her new device as soon as possible, and maybe it would already be delivered by Tuesday. Yesterday evening, one of the nurses had already brought a newsletter from one of the big electronic store chains in Japan, so she could make the first decision and get a feeling for what she wanted immediately. It was really a bit overwhelming. She couldn't even remember when she had bought her last computer. It was over ten years ago, maybe even before she married Enji. Now, they looked so different, and every single one of them had those holographic features that she didn't even know how they worked.

Never mind the fact that she felt they had gotten a lot more expensive too. She remembered the last time she bought a phone shortly after Natsuo was born… surely, she hadn't paid 130,000 yen back then. Now it seemed like that was the minimum she would have to pay. That gave her pause. Her and Enji shared a private bank account that was separate from his business and hero-bank accounts, as well as from the ones they had set up for the children. They paid both of their living expenses from that account. It paid for her stay in the hospital, for her clothes and for the books she bought almost every week. Of course, the money all came from Enji's work. That had never made her pause before. It had been obvious that as they lived together and she raised the children, he would pay for all of them. In a way, it had been part of her marriage agreement. Later, when she had broken down and he had put her into the hospital, they hadn't really questioned that arrangement either, as they were still married, and he was the reason she was in the hospital in the first place. Now, however, it seemed different.

She had asked for a divorce; soon they would be separate people and suddenly it felt wrong to make such an investment without asking him first. Anyway… what would she do after the divorce? Back when they had married, the former head lawyer of the Endeavor Hero Agency – a stringent old man who had died of cancer just a few years ago – had taken extra care in drafting a marriage contract. He had been adamant that in case of a divorce, Enji's professional career could not be jeopardized. She hadn't really minded back then. For one, she had not expected to divorce him in the future, and secondly, he had paid a handsome amount to her own parents that would help them a lot and that they would keep even in case of a divorce. Also, the marriage contract, if she remembered correctly, had granted her at least some stipend that would help her live comfortably. But her treatment was expensive, she knew. Of course, that was all so long ago, she hardly remembered the details and maybe, considering all that, she should have probably consulted a lawyer first before springing that decision on Enji…

She hadn't thought this through. Leaving the newsletter forgotten on her desk she started pacing the room. Would she even be able to afford rent? Surely she wouldn't have to mooch off her children? And how did she even think she could help Touya if she couldn't financially support herself?

She hadn't thought this through! She should talk to Enji, take her decision back, consult a lawyer and… and what? If she took her decision back now, who would even take her seriously anymore? Oh Gods, what had she done? Couldn't she have at least…

She was suddenly brought out of her fright by a knock on the door. "It's me, Mom," she heard Natsuo's voice from the outside.

Surprised she glanced at her clock. It was indeed already past nine and the visiting hours had started, even if normally her kids wouldn't come to visit that early. "Come in," she said, sitting down on her bed and glancing at the carpet. Would he realize that she had just been panicking? Had it been audible in her voice, or had she left her footprints on the carpet? But that was ridiculous!

When the door opened, Natsuo put his head through the door frame, before he stepped through entirely, closing the door behind himself. He seemed unsure and awkward. Right, Enji must have called him to tell him of the situation.

As soon as she remembered that, her face darkened with disappointment. Why hadn't Natsuo told her? Had he thought her too weak to understand? She glanced at him, scrutinizing, but he avoided her gaze making it impossible to accurately judge what made him remain quiet, keep such huge secrets from her and the rest of the family.

He didn't turn to look at her, instead, he turned to the desk as if the newsletter laid out there was so very interesting. "Hi," he said, with his eyes on the newsletter, flicking one page over. "Do you want to buy a new phone?"

Her brows furrowed a little. Yesterday, she had vowed not to blame him. She had immediately blamed Enji, and even herself a little, but never her boy. But now, he stood right in front of her and couldn't even look at her. As she continued to glare at him, she could see his neck turn a light red tone from how nervous he was.

"You spoke to your father, I assume?" she said, not answering his question.

Natsuo only grunted.

She fiddled with her hands. Why could he not even look at her? "Look at me, Natsu," she demanded, "please?"

Finally, he did as she asked. He looked at her with huge grey eyes that he had inherited from his mother. Her own eyes. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Immediately she pushed her anger to the back of her mind.

How could he keep quiet for so long, keep these terrible secrets from the entire family? She still couldn't quite understand it, but for now, that was not the most important thing, she realized. Her boy seemed so confused, so lost. He had visited her just a few days ago. He came by regularly and she had never realized. Had she been so blind, that she could not see her child's suffering? She had thought he was doing better after he had started his studies. He had seemed so relaxed and happy whenever he talked about it, about the new friends he met, or when he hinted at that girlfriend he had.

Was it all just an act, or how come he now looked at her as if he needed saving? Had she failed him so? It took her breath away.

When was the last time they had talked for real? What had they talked about when they last met? She still remembered it like it was yesterday. He had told her about how he had visited his girlfriend in Yokohama, how he had forgotten his phone, and everybody had searched for him. He had seemed so embarrassed about it and she had just taken his explanation for face value. They had talked the rest of that day about Fuyumi's new problems with Enji and the public finding out about the abuse. It had been pleasant, mostly.

Of course, now she knew that he had lied, and he must have lied like that for years. He had known about Touya being alive. How could he not tell her?

"I'm sorry," he suddenly blurted out, before she could become angry again. His eyes drifted off to the carpet. "I should have told you, but I…" he shrugged helplessly.

"Why didn't you?" she asked when he didn't explain himself.

"He asked me not to…," he started to explain half-heartedly. "He said, he wanted to wait for the right opportunity to tell you and Fuyumi and I… I just trusted him."

"Your father," she stared warily, "said you met Touya two years ago. Two years, Natsu!" She couldn't help but hiss a little as she repeated the information she had from Enji, and as she watched Natsu duck his head. It was obvious that it was the truth. "I could understand a few weeks, even months, but years?" She shook her head because she tried to understand, she really did. But, how could she? How could he?

He tucked his head a little further between his shoulders and looked like a beaten puppy. "I know," he muttered finally, but that wasn't the explanation she was waiting for. "I know…," he repeated helplessly. "I just didn't want to betray him…again." The word was whispered like a curse.

Rei shivered, cold. "What do you mean?"

But he wouldn't answer, but instead avoided her gaze turning to the desk again.

"Natsuo!" Hearing his full name instead of the endearing nickname made him stiffen visibly. "What do you mean with 'again'?" Her voice brokered no argument. He would answer her!

Finally, he relented. "Because I believed him…," he lowered his head in shame, "I believed Endeavor." He hesitated, flicking through the newsletter as if he was actually reading the different offers there. "I think… I mean, I always… I told him, he was wrong, that Touya wouldn't leave us, but actually, I believed it. I mean… why would he not?" He glanced at Rei with raised eyebrows and horror in his eyes. "I believed it. Fuyumi knew Touya better, she never believed it, but I… Endeavor only had to say it once, and I… part of me believed it and I hated Touya for it."

"Natsu…," Rei tried to speak, but her voice was hoarse with emotion. Her chest contracted painfully. She hadn't known, hadn't seen any of it. Whenever Fuyumi had vehemently denied that Toyua would ever… could ever do _that, _Natsuo had stood beside her and nodded. She had not known how he really felt. She had been too absorbed in her own grief to see her son's suffering. Hearing about Touya… it had nearly destroyed her. She remembered that the first time they visited after Touya's supposed death, she had spent most of the time asking about Shoto, how did he take it, how did their father treat him, how was he without his mother around? She knew that because they had almost always spoken about Shoto because her youngest son could never come to visit, but she missed him dearly. Sometimes they spoke about Touya too, though not often.

When had they ever really talked about Natsuo? Or Fuyumi, even?

"You were just a child, Natsu," she tried to tell him, but she could see it in her posture that it wasn't working. "I'm sure, he doesn't even mind it…"

She tried to say more, but was promptly interrupted by him.

"I think it's why he never came back," Natsuo said finally. The words came out quickly as if he was afraid of them. He glanced into Rei's direction momentarily, but then looked back at the pointless newsletter. "He told Endeavor that it was because of him, I'm sure; he told me the same, but he… You know I visited his grave almost daily right after he...died. I came by every day. Sometimes Fuyumi would be there too, but really, I wanted to be alone, because I didn't want her to see me scream at him. I blamed him." His shoulders sacked a little. "I think… I know he saw me there. He never admitted it, but he said something..."

Rei was stunned. Enji had told her what Touya had explained to him. That he had wanted to go home, but then he had seen how Enji seemed perfectly fine without him, almost happy that he was gone even. Surely, Touya would have told the truth? She remembered her boy as an honest kid, and she didn't think Enji would just come up with that explanation by himself. Surely Natsuo was just imagining things.

"I'm sure you're wrong," she said with a smile, trying to placate her son. "What was it, that made you think he saw you."

"He said something about my hair. That the last time, he saw me I had these horrible long bangs." He shook his head. "But I only had those bangs after his death."

Rei was quiet for a moment. This was no proof, she thought. "He could have seen you everywhere, not just at the grave," she told him sternly, but then she relented. "But even if that happened, I'm sure you're wrong. That's certainly not the reason he stayed away. Believe me!" Why was she so adamant about this, when out of all the members in this family, she really knew the least about this situation? "I'm sure Touya doesn't blame you. He loves you!" She said it with true conviction in her voice.

He turned to her and the way he stared at her, that conviction crumbled to dust. What was he thinking? There was something in his eyes, something so deeply hurt, it tore at her heart. "You don't know him," he said quietly, in the most composed way he had spoken all day. "He's not…" He shook his head searching for words before he seemingly gave up.

His words hit her the wrong way. What was he trying to tell her? Simultaneously they brought her anger back. Of course, she didn't know him! "How would I know him, when you didn't tell me!?" she retorted angrily, regretting her words immediately when Natsuo's face crumpled to despair.

"I know!" He cried desperately. "I'm sorry. I screw everything up!"

It was a roller coaster of emotions. Rei almost got whiplash from it. She felt anger, then regret, then pity, then frustration in such a rapid succession she hardly even knew how to feel. She couldn't deal with this. Vehemently she shook her head trying to sort through her emotions, trying to come up with a comprehensive thought.

"With Touya, and you… and even Fuyumi!" He balled his fists at his side, his shoulders shaking, and eyes scrunched shut. "I'm so sorry!"

Rei didn't understand what he was talking about. Fuyumi? Because he hadn't told Fuyumi either. Was that what he was apologizing for?

"I ruin everything!"

"What are you talking about?" she finally found her voice again. "Yes, you didn't tell us about Touya, but you can still tell us now. You could tell Fuyumi, and…"

"No, I can't!" he bellowed. "Because it's not Touya anymore!"

Rei stared at him uncomprehending.

"You don't understand!" he cried. "You never saw him, and I… I don't want you to see him. Not like this!"

"You make no sense," she told him, but the look in his eyes, bright and grey and fearful was frightening.

"Mom, he's not Touya! He's something else. He tried to murder Endeavor, he _murdered_ people. He—"

"He's still my son!" Rei proclaimed.

"He's **mad**!" Natsuo continued. "And it's all my fault. If I had never said those things to keep him away!" Rei wanted to interrupt him, tell him he was being ridiculous blaming himself like that, but he already continued: "Screw that! If I had just told you two years ago, maybe you could have saved him. You or Fuyumi…" He shook his head. "Fuyumi always just wanted a family, and I took that away from her!"

"No, you didn't!" Rei immediately rejected that notion. "That was your father!" Part of her wanted to say that it was her for leaving the family, whether it had been her choice or not, but she quieted that obnoxious voice as swiftly as she could.

"But he changed!" Natsuo cried. And now he was really crying, tears were streaming down his face. Rei was utterly stunned.

To hear that admission out of Natsuo's mouth… She had never thought to hear that. Natsuo had always been the most adamant about Enji's unrepentant evil. He obviously saw her stunned expression on her face, because he snorted angrily.

"Fuyumi already saw it half a year or so ago. You saw it a few months ago and Shoto… I don't even know when Shoto realized it, but you all knew. Only I… Fuyumi wanted that family, I always knew that, with or without Touya, and the only one who stood in her way was me!" He shook his head furiously. "Because I couldn't fucking see his change. And I still can't…" He cut himself off, snorting pathetically, "I still can't forgive him! I hate him!" His entire body shook like a leaf and she only now understood.

This was not sadness or weakness… This was fury that brought tears into his eyes.

"Fuyumi cut ties with him because I didn't admit to the truth, you know. And I know she's hurting because she loves him. The gods only know why, but she does, and she wants this stupid family that she imagines in her head. But as long as I can't forgive him… But I don't want to! Why do I have to forgive him, for her to be happy!? I hate him! I _want_ to hate him! I don't want him to change, and I don't fucking care that he changed!"

"Natsu," she finally tried to get a word in, tried to get him to calm just a little bit, enough to listen to her. Where did all this come from? She knew he didn't like his father. She knew he harbored the most resentment out of anybody short of - judging by the little she now knew - maybe Touya, but this? Why had she never seen this? Did she even know her son? "You don't have to forgive him if you don't want to. You don't have to fake your forgiveness to make Fuyumi happy. This is your decision alone."

Natsuo stared at her, breathing heavily, exhausted from his angry screaming. "Why did you?" he asked, but the way he asked it sounded rough and prompt as if he was snapping at her. "How could you, after everything he did to you?" He shook his head confused. "And if you can, if even Shoto can… why can't I? He never treated me the way he did you or Shoto."

"Do you think you have no right to hate him when I don't?" she asked because she finally felt like she understood.

"He never beat me," he muttered, "so why can't I… Am I so much more hateful than—?"

"It has nothing to do with that," she said, angry that he would even suggest that. "You're not hateful. The way you beat yourself up over this is proof of that, don't you think?" He stared at her helplessly and confused. "I…," she shrugged, "I didn't forgive him either," she finally said, making her son's eyebrows rise in stunned surprise. "I know it must have seemed like it to you when I told you about how he had changed. But the truth is…" How could she explain this so he would understand? "You said, you don't want him to change, don't want to acknowledge that he changed, and I understand that. It makes this whole situation so much more difficult for you. You already gave up on him, didn't you?" She examined his face to see the truth there. "For you, that's maybe the best way. You can cut ties. You can move on without wasting energy on hoping for something that will maybe never happen the way your sister does. Maybe that's the right way for you. But it can't be for me."

"What do you mean?" he asked after a while of thinking about her words.

"I am stuck here, you see. I'm stuck here until and unless he changes." She looked around the room, then her gaze traveled out of the window. It was the same old sight over the hospital gardens she had enjoyed for the last ten years of her life. Sometimes she got to leave that room. She could go to a pool or a nurse would go shopping with her, or she could visit some of the other inhabitants of this psychiatric ward who were in somewhat similar situations than her, but hardly ever stayed for quite as long as she did.

Most people only stayed for a few months, then they would either move to more permanent loggings, or they would go back home because ultimately it was too expensive to pay for a hospital room like this for such a long time. It was really a constant coming and going, and some would come multiple times. They would remain for a month or two, then return to their home and the same toxic environment they had come from. Half a year later they would be back in the hospital for another few weeks and so on.

"When I first arrived here it was such a foreign environment and I missed you children so much, but I got better. I got better step by step until I felt almost normal again, until I could almost pretend that I was happy again. But every day, I was terrified that he would come and take me back home." She had been so ashamed when she had first acknowledged that fear. Because she had three children waiting for her, shouldn't she _want_ to get back to them?

She didn't tell Natsuo that part because she was still so ashamed of it, no matter how often Tanaka-sensei tried to tell her that she had to look out for herself, and that that would also be the best for her kids. But how could she not feel ashamed of it? Maybe Natsuo could read between the lines, if not… he didn't need to know, right?

"Those were my only two options, you see? To stay here, or to go back home." And what terrible options they were. The hospital seemed the kinder fate, but really it was like a prison. "I am stuck here… Or rather, I _was_ stuck here for the last ten years, but now… he _changed_." She smiled a little. "I don't forgive him, but I have to acknowledge his change because if I don't, I can never move on from here."

For a while, she looked at him and waited for him to react. Finally, he lowered his gaze nodding slightly. "I think I understand," he muttered.

He stood there for a while quietly shifting on his feet. She wanted to ask him about Touya. Her fingers were itching to find out more about him since he had first entered the room. When he broke down in front of her like this, she had momentarily pushed that itch aside, almost forgot about it, but now it was back. Still, it didn't feel right. She wanted to spend this time with Natsuo, truly with him. When had she last done that without talking about Shoto, or Touya, or even Enji? And they had even spent the last 30 minutes talking about Touya and Enji…

"Do you want to help me select a new computer?" she asked, somewhat unsure if this was the best way to involve him. But when he glanced up at her almost relieved, she felt she had done right.

"You want a computer?" he asked, his voice still a bit shaky but quickly gaining its strength again. The angry tears had dried on his face, leaving his eyes red-rimmed and his cheeks somewhat puffy.

She shrugged. "Whatever is most convenient. I may get internet access soon."

"I think a tablet would be best," he said after a while. "It wouldn't take up so much space in your room, you could take it with you, and we could buy a keyboard to go with it, so you won't have to type directly on the screen." He flipped through the newsletter mumbling a little. Rei smiled as she sat at her desk next to where he stood. "You also don't really need the newest models," he muttered, glancing at her, "they have all sorts of stuff in them now, that nobody really needs anyway." He shrugged. "Like you don't need a full AI-controlled Smart Home System nor 4D-Geo-Tracking."

She just watched as he flipped through the pages not really understanding what he was talking about.

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I just enjoy writing Natsuo way too much!


	8. Hawks I

Gosh... I completely forgot to upload this.

This is another chapter that took a while to write for me. Also... this time there is a bit of new information here. Hope you will like it.

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**Hawks I**

It had to be a fake.

The Number Two Hero stared at the diary in his hand. He hadn't read all of it, but he had at least scanned over a decent chunk of the entries. It was dated six years ago, a rather thin book with a leather binding and pages that showed how often it had been opened and closed. There were quite a few papers folded into dog-ears as if the owner hadn't bothered much to keep it in good shape.

The owner and author of this diary, according to Shigaraki Tomura, and the book itself was none other than Todoroki Natsuo, Endeavor's third-born.

"You're positive this is genuine?" he asked, still stunned by this new revelation.

Why did he even bother? Did he expect Shigaraki Tomura, of all people, to tell him the truth? He would have to check the truth of the content himself.

"What, you don't believe us? You don't believe that our _valiant_ Number One Hero could actually do these things?" Shigaraki sniggered with a broad grin, leaning over Hawks and the book as if to read the open page over Hawks' shoulder.

"Where did you get this?" Hawks asked next. He closed the book with some force as if he did not want Shigaraki to read it, although he was certain Shigaraki and all the other members of the League must have already scanned this diary to the last most insignificant word.

"Would you believe us, if I told you that he gave it to us himself?" Shigaraki, like before, answered the question with a question.

A shiver ran up Hawks' spine. He still was not used to this man. This petulant child with so much anger in his body to feed his madness. Hawks had only infiltrated the League a week ago. Just after they had sent that Noumu to Fukuoka, when he had used Endeavor as a meat shield. It was their demand to prove his trustworthiness to the League, and promptly while he had done as asked, they had betrayed him and sent the Noumu in the middle of the day in the center of the city. It had been so powerful it had almost succeeded if it weren't for the Number One Hero. There was nothing Hawks could have done against that betrayal but swallow and accept it as something that had happened, unless he wanted to jeopardize his entire mission, ruining his position with the League, and wasting all the effort and sacrifices he had already made to get here. Still, he had worked hard to gain their trust, and still he could not get used to this man. Tomura Shigaraki… Hawks had never met anybody quite so unhinged.

"Todoroki Natsuo?" As he spoke, his voice seemed to hitch. He tried to fake a smile, so Shigaraki would not see it.

Minutely, the League of Villains' junior leader frowned, then he shook his head. "No, not Natsuo. Endeavor, your Number One."

"He is not my Number One", Hawks said almost immediately. This time his voice was smooth with the lie. It just rolled off the tongue, practiced and true. As far as the League knew, he hated the Number One. He hated most powerful heroes, that was – as far as they knew – his reason for betraying them. These materialistic drones, caring only for their own success and material gains… It was a lie these villains loved to hear, one they ate so easily, he didn't even have to try very hard.

"Of course, of course," Shigaraki nodded, taking a few steps back still smiling. "Sorry for insulting you like that. We know of course, after all, it is him you tried to sacrifice in Fukuoka, is it not?"

Hawks' teeth clenched over each other, cracking so loudly in his head, he was sure Shigaraki must have noticed, but he didn't react. That betrayal in Fukuoka… it still ate at Hawks whenever he thought back to that day, whenever he realized what he had to do to get here, whenever he remembered that sight of Endeavor in the hospital in Fukuoka – unable to talk, unable to see from his left eye, unable to move a single limb. Or when he saw that nasty scar on the Number One's face.

"Right," he said it because he had to, not because he felt like it. "So, this… Endeavor gave this to you?" Why would Endeavor do that? What had he missed while he was away?

Hawks had been in Fukuoka for the last few days – he still had to do his job there, and when he made his way back to the Headquarters of the League of Villains today – Dabi had only showed him this place a week earlier – the whole atmosphere had been different. Dabi seemed to be in a bad mood, Shigaraki was halfway between raging mad and manically excited, Toga looked at her phone with a face as if somebody had died, and Twice seemed to try desperately to cheer everybody up. Only when they realized that Hawks had arrived, their mood seemed to shift again, as they gave him this diary to read and were now waiting for a reaction with greedy smiles on their faces. It was an eerie scene.

Shigaraki didn't say anything, even when Hawks glared at him demanding for answers.

"Don't make me drag every bit of information out of your noses," Hawks demanded, annoyed and put off by this situation. "What happened? How did you make him give you the diary?"

"I'm surprised that's the question you are so desperately seeking answers for," Dabi muttered, leering from behind. "Shouldn't you rather question how Endeavor could hide this truth from society for so long? Or how it can be that a hero abuses his own family for two decades and gets away with it?"

Hawks glared at him with fire in his eyes. He would not succeed and twist this in a way to undermine Hawks' credibility with the League. Hawks questions were legit. He waited for a moment, then he rounded back on Shigaraki. "Explain!" He would not be satisfied with half-answers.

Fifteen minutes later, he had the whole story. Shigaraki explained it with gleeful excitement, while Dabi only occasionally interrupted to throw in a curse or insult. Soon, Hawks had a clear picture: They had used Natsuo, Endeavor's son, to lure the Number One Hero into a trap, they had tortured and almost killed him, before the police found them and put an end to it. Ultimately, the diary was the only thing that remained of this day.

How had Hawks not known any of this? How had they planned all this above his head? What was this infiltration even good for, if he still did not know and could not do anything? And how was Endeavor doing? Did he survive? He must be! That would explain the League's sour faces when he had entered. The fact that they had had the Number One in their grasp only to let the opportunity slip.

"He survived?" Hawks made sure to not sound too concerned, "and this is all that remains? A diary of a kid?"

Dabi growled angrily.

"Dabi here botched it," Shigaraki said simply, with a scathing glance at the fire user.

"He tried his best!" Twice interrupted. "We almost had him, and we will get another chance!"

"And we still have the diary," Dabi reminded glaring back at their Leader. He pointed at the book. "With that, if we do it right, we can destroy his career." He looked at Hawks. "Don't you think, Mr. Number Two?"

Hawks shrugged looking back to the book in his hands. So, it seemed to be genuine. He still didn't trust the League completely, but this story, the way they told it, they seemed truthful enough. So, Endeavor had really…

_Stop this!_ He admonished himself. _Don't get distracted! You knew this! You knew he was an asshole, everybody knows it, it's part of his image. This can't really be that shocking!_

And it was true. Of any hero… Endeavor abusing his children, he could see that. It seemed to make sense. It didn't seem out of his character. Of most other heroes, he'd just shrug the accusation off as a ludicrous hoax, but with Endeavor it rang true. It sounded like something he might actually do. Still, seeing it and believing it, those were two different things.

"You seem surprised," Dabi cackled. "Is it so hard to believe?"

Hawks looked up at him, trying to shake his head believingly, but his eyes were still wide with denial.

"Heroes!" That was Shigaraki's voice, hissing in hatred. "All they do is destroy… families, lives, loves, freedoms!" He grinned widely. "We will end them! Hawks?!"

"Huh?" He couldn't force out a single coherent word.

"I want you to duplicate it. Ten-fold, a hundred-fold, however often necessary. Make it public, I want every man and woman in all of Japan to read about who their hero really is."

Hawks stared at him. "You want me to…" His eyes narrowed dangerously. "Why me?" Giran would be much more suited to do that, he had the contacts necessary, didn't he? Surely Giran would be able to quickly spread the story to ten different journalists who'd eat every lie out of his hand. "Is this some new test?" he asked suspiciously. "Surely I have proved my loyalty enough in Fukuoka."

"Indeed, indeed," Shigaraki muttered with his hands raised in a placating way. "It's merely to make sure. If they should trace this back – which they hopefully won't – we can't have the League of Villains be connected to this diary. That would just undermine it's believability. But if it came from you…"

Hawks couldn't deny that logic. Still… "If they find out it's from me, that will blow my cover, won't it? At least some people will get suspicious." He didn't want to do this. He had already betrayed Endeavor once and this… This could destroy him more than the battle against the Noumu, more than even dying against a Noumu would… He couldn't possibly…

"It's a risk worth taking to take down the Number One," Shigaraki shrugged, as if their spy among the top heroes of Japan was expandable, not something to be treasured and used with care.

"Besides, we expect you to be careful," Dabi smiled. His fingers were touching the scar tissue under his left eye as if it was itching. "Just don't make a scene, and it will all go smoothly. Surely you have methods at your agency to hide your tracks?"

Of course, Dabi was right. There was no excuse not to do it. Other than the fact that Hawks didn't want to. As he didn't protest again, Shigaraki clapped his hands happily.

"It's decided then." He sounded like a child that had been informed that Christmas wouldn't happen this year, only to no learn it was just postponed for two days and he would get two presents to make up for the delay. He sounded manic.

Hawks glanced down at the book in his hands. Clearly it was the original? As he made to leave the room, his eyes roamed over the tattered pages. It looked like it was the real thing. Did they have copies or was this the only copy? Could he just throw it away, destroy it, and with it, the League's chance to hurt Endeavor? It would blow his cover, but was protecting the Number One Hero worth the sacrifice?

All his life, he had admired this man; really the only man he had ever admired. Even as a child. Endeavor… he had seen him as the true hero. A man with flaws, trying to – come hell or high water – be the best, the strongest. He had admired him more than even All Might, this will to endure. And now…

Was the man he admired really an abuser, a wife-beater? Somebody who had easily accepted his son's suicide and even swept it under the rug, so his son's death would not throw a negative light on his public persona? Were those the same two men – the hero Endeavor and the man Todoroki Enji?

Was it not his duty as a hero to fight injustice wherever he saw it, no matter who the perpetrator was?

Oh, who was he to judge!

He, who had infiltrated the League of Villains, who sank a little deeper into their depravity every time they met. Was it not him, who had almost destroyed Fukuoka, almost caused the deaths of hundreds, selling out the very people he had sworn to protect and the man he insisted he admired?

Who was the monster here? Who was the depraved one?

His fingers tightened around the leather binding. Thoughts of destroying the book were a welcome way to distract himself from his duty, but at the end of the day, he knew what was duty and what was just wishful thinking. Of course he would follow Shigaraki's command, of course he would do as asked and destroy the Number One's career. Not because he felt it was the right thing to do, not because he felt he had a duty to protect Endeavor's younger children who were still alive, or his wife locked away in hospital, according to the diary, but because it was his duty. He was Hawks, who had infiltrated the League of Villains and until it was time to reveal himself, he would not risk losing this position. He had sacrificed too much to get here, and if he had to throw the Number One Hero to the dogs, he would do just that and hate himself forever for it.

Ultimately, this was not about him, nor was it about the Number One. This was to protect Japan, that was his purpose in this world. It was the only thing he had ever learned to do.

On his way out, he hesitated, turning to the girl sitting closest to the door still staring at her phone with this face as if the world had ended. She hadn't said anything this whole time, which was very unlike her, he felt.

"What is it with you?" he asked, not even trying to make his question sound approachable, nice or as if he even cared for her feelings.

For a second she didn't react at all, then she dragged her eyes away from the screen of her phone, blinking at him as if she only now realized he was there. "I'm waiting for my boyfriend to write back," she said after a beat.

Hawks frowned. "Your…," he shook his head. "Natsuo…? Todoroki Natsuo?" Shigaraki had explained about that relationship too. Wasn't it just to fool the young Todoroki? What was Toga thinking, waiting for a new message? Surely, by now, Natsuo Todoroki must have realized who she really was. Surely, he had already blocked her number to not ever hear from her again. It was what he would do, Hawks said, if he ever were so stupid to get himself in that situation.

She smiled wistfully. "My Natsu," she agreed. "I love him."

Madness, he thought, as he left the room without another word, knowing if he had said anything else, it would have been something mean and insulting that all four members of the League would have taken offense too. How did he get himself into this situation?

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WHAAAT? Hawks sent the diary to the media?!

I hope you liked that chapter and my interpretation of Hawks.


	9. Fuyumi I

Finally... I've been waiting to start the Fuyumi PoVs!

Fuyumi one should chronologically takes place after she moved out. It spans a period of almost a month, so it's a bit difficult to place, but I think it makes most sense to read it in the context of **Chapter 11 "Dropping more than one Bombshell"** of the main story and **"Natsuo I + II"**. I only uploaded this chapter now, however, because I think although chronologically it follows those two chapters, it makes sense to only read it after **Chapter 48 "The Elephant in the Room"**.

I hope you enjoy it.

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**Fuyumi I**

Moving out was harder than she had first assumed. Years ago, she had stayed at home for Shoto's sake, so he wouldn't be at home alone with Father. Even when her younger brother had moved out to study, she had stayed. Recently she had stayed for her Father. Shoto was at UA most of the time, so he didn't need Fuyumi at home anymore. She could have moved out and she had almost done it, but then her Dad had changed, if only a little, one step at a time, and she had stayed to support him.

All for naught, she now knew. He had lied to her, twisted some cruel tale about how Touya had tried to kill him. A ridiculous and terrible lie. After everything he had done, how could she forgive that? It was the straw that broke the camel's back now of all times, after she had finally started to see genuine good in him and had hoped for a better future with her family. With all of them, herself, her brothers, mom and him.

Moving out should have been easy. She'd considered it so many times, was already one foot out of the door the moment she turned eighteen. She had even looked for new apartments after Shoto's teachers invited him to live in the dormitories on UA grounds. Then her dad had changed – had seemed to change – so she had stayed and forgotten all about the apartments she had already picked out for herself.

Her dad would be out of the hospital in a week at the latest, so she had to move out as soon as possible and that didn't leave her much time looking for a new home.

So, with all her stuff, she moved into the first room she could find. It was a three-room apartment she shared with two siblings. For now, she only lived here for intermediate rent, and her room was normally occupied by a different girl who spent this trimester abroad in Korea. She'd have to find something more permanent soon. And that was a good thing, she decided.

Tomoko studied Business Management at the university of Musutafu. She was two years younger than Fuyumi and just started her second year. She was dedicated to her studies and most days she sat in her room or at the table in the shared kitchen brooding over her books. She was nice, but so preoccupied with her studies they never talked much. In her first week in the new apartment, she only had one single lengthy conversation with her right after she moved in.

Her brother Aisuke was the opposite of his name's meaning. He used the Kanji for 'pioneering' for the first part of his name, which Fuyumi, who taught tiny little children their first use of kanji, found rather fascinating when she found out about it – but he turned out to be the laziest boy she might have met in her life. He was a year older than Fuyumi, and after he had finished his studies, he was about to start his engineering career. He worked three days a week and when he didn't work, he was at home with one or two friends sitting in his room playing video games.

Fuyumi didn't hate them, just in general Fuyumi normally got along with most people, but it was soon apparent that they weren't her kind of people. Fuyumi liked to do stuff with the people she lived with. Even in her home, living as a part of the most dysfunctional family she herself knew, she had always tried to make time and motivate the others to participate in family meals and other activities. She had hoped in moving out, she might get more of that, not less. Instead, her new housemates each lived their own lives and seemed to bother each other as little as humanly possible.

That wasn't the only disappointment in her new independent life though. Another shocker was the size of the apartment, or to phrase it differently, how small everything suddenly was. She was used to living in the big Todoroki abode. She had lived there all her life. Of course she knew in a big city like Musutafu, this was a rare luxury she wouldn't be able to afford on her teacher's pay. She had expected it, and she was still shocked.

It wasn't that her room was too small. It had been difficult and needed a lot of hard work, but ultimately she had managed to reduce her stuff to the minimum that would fit in her room, leaving the rest in boxes in the basement or even to sell online. What she missed more than the space in her own room, was the family living room, the space in the kitchens, the gardens. The Todoroki estates were surrounded by sprawling green gardens, even a little Koi pond. This apartment didn't have any gardens. There was a balcony, which was part of Aisuke's room, and that was it. He didn't have any plants there, too lazy to take care of them. Sometimes, Fuyumi would ask if she could sit there reading a book, and he didn't care and let her, but it wasn't the same as sitting in their gardens.

Speaking of Aisuke's room, when the architects had designed the apartment, they had clearly planned for the biggest room to be the common living room. It was obvious from the apartment's design that it was meant to have two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom and the kitchen. Instead, they had turned the living room into an extra bedroom for Aisuke. So, there was no living room. As for the kitchen… It was so small she could hardly turn around in it. Most of the fun she normally had in cooking was killed by the claustrophobic feelings the kitchen gave her.

Moving out was a disappointment. It was more difficult than she had thought, and lonelier. But it wasn't terrible. After all, finally, she had her freedom, and she would get used to this new apartment or move out again. Now that she was on her own, she could do what she wanted, and wasn't that a magnificent state of being?

A few days after she moved in, she watched her father come home on live TV. The journalists and paparazzi were camping outside the Todoroki estate, and she sat in Aisuke's room on the couch, watching his return from a safe distance.

Even Tomoko could get away from her studies long enough to glance into the room and see Fuyumi's father on TV as well. Of course, Fuyumi hadn't told them he was her father, but she assumed Tomoko suspected it, and Aisuke might just not care. That at least was a positive about her new housemates. They left Fuyumi mostly alone, even where it concerned her family.

Tomoko simply made a comment about how shocked she was about the news concerning the number one hero, Aisuke expressed his disappointment in the hero, and Fuyumi let their comments wash over her. Shortly after that, Aisuke's friend arrived and Aisuke turned the news off and his Play Station on, while Fuyumi left to correct some papers. She needed to distract herself. Anger had flared up anew after seeing her father for the first time in days.

For the first few days after moving out, Fuyumi had regretted it a little. Moving out of the Todoroki estate to live in a tiny student apartment with two strangers was a downgrade no matter how you looked at it. Maybe she could have just found a way to deal with her father in the house. After all, the estate was big enough that two people could easily avoid each other if they tried hard enough. But then after a few days, she recognized a different side to her new life.

There was a newfound freedom she hadn't been able to enjoy before. Of course, she was twenty-two years old and earned her own money, so Father – despite all his shortcomings – had stopped making up benign rules that she had to follow all day every day. As long as she was quiet enough and let him sleep, she didn't have a curfew since she turned eighteen. But still… When you lived with your parents, it was just natural that they wanted to know if you had plans to stay out late, or to invite people over or just in general that they would ask you what you did all day. With her mother in the hospital and her father rather busy, these sorts of interactions were only few and in between, but it was still a factor.

With your father in the house, you couldn't sleep until late into the afternoon without them wondering, you couldn't come home deadbeat drunk, you couldn't just spontaneously spend the night somewhere else, you couldn't just do a lazy week eating junk-food on the couch. Or you could, but he'd have questions. It wasn't like Fuyumi planned to get wasted, but it was a freeing realization to know that she could without any awkward questions.

It was a kind of freedom and at the same time responsibility she had never known before. Sure, she had always felt like the responsible sibling. After all she had given Natsuo the opportunity to move out and be free, while she had shouldered the duty to help out their younger brother during Dad's worst years. She had learned to do most of the cooking and manage the chores in the house as early as thirteen. She had a job as a teacher in an elementary school, teaching cute little six- and seven-year-olds… Yet, still it was a different sort of responsibility to make sure your bank account was full enough to be able to pay next month's rent, to manage your own money to be able to eat, have clothes and a little fun, all without accumulating debt. She had to arrange herself with her roommates to get all the issues regarding the shared apartment dealt with. They had to communicate with the homeowner whenever something wasn't quite in order, and the neighbors when there was a bigger issue concerning the house. She had to take care of her own insurance.

All of that was new to her. At her father's home, when something was broken, she'd just call the mechanic and her Dad's bank account would pay for it. Now, when something was broken, she and her roommates had to scramble for whatever money they had left or inform the homeowner. It was all new and at the beginning it was a bit overwhelming. Soon, however, she learned to love this new freedom and responsibility. It was something she had never had, something she hadn't even expected.

She started going out more. It had been the rational decision at first. She didn't like cooking in that small kitchen, so she had started eating out more often. It was a bit more expensive, so she couldn't do it every day, but it was the one luxury she granted to herself.

Musutafu at night was something she had hardly ever enjoyed before. Before she had mostly stayed at home for Shoto, and since Shoto lived in the UA dorms and her father's new attitude seemed so promising, she had made an effort to be there to greet him when he came home from work – however late that would be. Why would she even want to go out at night? She had always asked herself. Only villains and rascals and drunken youths and the poor sod who had to work until late in the afternoon would be out and about so late – especially during weekdays. But she had been wrong. The streets were mostly empty, and the few people she saw she'd rather stay away from at night. But in the bars and restaurants it was different. They were brimming with life and noise and laughter. Young couples on dates, old couples on a late eat-out, families dining together, big groups of friends eating and joking. Sometimes the members of some sports team or another ate together to celebrate a victory or a successful season. Sometimes old school friends met for a five-year-anniversary. Some people ate alone like her.

Fuyumi mostly enjoyed watching the families. Parents with their children, sitting around a table to enjoy the barbecue together. Sometimes the younger kids were so young they were about to nod off in the middle of the main course only to raise themselves one last time for dessert. Sometimes the kids were older, almost adults, sitting at one corner of the table with their smartphones, looking as if they could easily think of a dozen places they'd rather be. Sometimes the kids were so young that they needed their food cut by Mom or Dad, and sometimes they all had such particular eating habits that it was a difficult task for everybody involved to get their order done properly.

It was something Fuyumi never had. Maybe that was the reason she liked watching a little, when there was a family at a table nearby. Maybe she was jealous. Or maybe she was just glad for the kids she saw, that they had that.

She found her favorite café right around the corner of her new apartment. It was just a small little establishment, and it was owned and run by a group of young people about her age. Most of the waiting staff were actually students from the Musutafu University. The place was a former hairdresser, the old and faded name of the shop was still barely readable on the copper sign above the entrance. The 'Aoyama Hair Salon' also was the namesake for the 'Café Ao'. Fitting to its name, one entire wall was painted in a deep, vibrant azure. The other walls were decorated with little pictures of people that might have worked or lived here once. On one side there was a big window front, opening the view to the busy people out on the street and a playground on the opposite side of the street.

It was a cuddly little place tucked between a big bookstore and a shop for drawing utensils. There was only space for fifteen people sitting on comfortable cushions around low Japanese tables. As there were only so few places, you were sometimes expected to share a table with strangers, which was uncommon practice to Fuyumi, but she loved it.

The reason she kept returning to the place, however, was not the cuddly atmosphere, but the sweets. They were to die for. She came by every afternoon almost. It was just so convenient. She took the metro home and walked the last few hundred meters on foot. She would always pass the Café and thus almost every day she'd visit the Café for just a short while. Sometimes she just took a cup of green tea, sometimes she took a few sweets to go, and sometimes she stayed for the whole experience. Honestly, she also tried to spy a little, how they made the mochi so good. Especially the kuzumochi… She had always thought her own were good. It was one of the first things she had ever learned to make. Her grandma had shown her how to do it when she was just nine years old, and the first time she had made it, she had screwed up so hard that Touya, not even two years older, had spit it out and laughed at her. Since then she had perfected her recipe… Now, however, she needed to reevaluate.

It was a Thursday in the late afternoon. She bit into a piece of her kuzumochi, letting it slide off the tongue, chewed a little. Maybe a bit less sugar, she noted. Or maybe the secret was in the toppings. She tried again, this time with more of the toppings on top of it.

Fuyumi was so distracted she only realized the woman when she spoke to her.

"Excuse me?"

She was so shocked to be spoken to, the sweet almost fell off her chopsticks. To say she was mildly irritated when she looked up would be an understatement. There was a tall woman, not even bothering to bow down or sit next to her, as she spoke to Fuyumi who essentially sat on the ground with just a cushion between her and the floor. She had to turn her head up so much it was ridiculous. Not only was the woman not bending down to her, she was also tall. Very tall. Possibly the tallest woman Fuyumi had ever seen. From down where Fuyumi sat, she looked even taller than her father, which was absurd, because her father was a huge man.

"Yes please?" Fuyumi answered, trying to remain friendly even if the woman had so rudely spoken down to her.

"It's last call, the kitchen closes in a few minutes, so do you want something more to eat?" The way she spoke was brisk and direct. Very uncommon for Japanese people even more so for a staff member in a café. That was what she was. Fuyumi now recognized the light blue shirt all employees here wore. What set this woman apart from the other waiters, Fuyumi now realized, was that she was no waitress at all. There was a white bandana – a hachimaki - around her head. Was she the chef?

Fuyumi was taken aback that the chef had personally left her kitchen to speak to a customer. "Uh…," she muttered. Her eyes drifted through the room. She hadn't even realized that she was one of the last few customers left. On the other side, a couple just paid for their food and another young man enjoyed a steaming cup of tea in quiet. And then there was her still enjoying her kuzumochi and tea.

"Yes?" The chef tapped impatiently with her foot against the floor when Fuyumi failed to answer outright.

"Uhm, no thanks," Fuyumi hurried to say, but she apparently sounded so unsure, the other woman just narrowed her eyes at her.

"If you want something else, just say it! It would be no biggie. But I'd hate it if I had to open the kitchen again if you decide differently in a few minutes."

Fuyumi pouted at her tone, but if she was honest, now that she got increasingly used to her impolite way of speaking, she also found it mildly amusing. "Ah, then… I'd take four dango for take-away?" She quickly asked, if only to make the other woman happy.

Again, the woman didn't seem to believe her. She crossed her slender arms in front of her chest and narrowed her eyes another fraction. "You didn't just say that because I bullied you into it, right?"

Oh gods, she sounded so unsure. Fuyumi was sure the woman by now regretted that she had ever left her quiet kitchen. It was obvious that while she worked in the service industry, she didn't particularly enjoy speaking to the customers. It was adorable. Fuyumi couldn't help but burst out laughing. That made her pout under her hachimaki and that in turn made Fuyumi laugh even harder.

"No, no," Fuyumi hurried to say, before the chef could storm off embarrassed. "I'd really like to have those dango." It wasn't really true. The dango were good, just like all the other sweets were, but… well, she had initially felt – how had the other woman called it? – bullied into ordering them. Now, however, she really didn't want to make the chef feel as if Fuyumi didn't enjoy her food.

In fact, Fuyumi's good-natured reply seemed to loosen the tightness in the tall woman's shoulders a little. "Good!" she exclaimed happily, nodding to herself. "Four dango coming up at once."

Fuyumi quickly ate the last bit of her kuzumochi to hurry after her.

"Did you make the kuzumochi, too?" she asked the woman just before she could vanish in the kitchen. Now that she stood right behind the woman, she had a better position to gage her size. As she had assumed, she wasn't quite as tall as her father, but there was not much missing. She was certainly taller than Natsuo, which by itself was a surprise. Natsuo had always been huge, even as a boy. This woman was much more slender, though. It made her limbs seem gangly and disproportionate. She had almost a foot on Fuyumi who wasn't short herself.

"Yeah, what about it?" She answered, stopping in the doorway. She looked back at Fuyumi with an expression that seemed almost guarded.

"They were the best kuzumochi I've ever eaten," Fuyumi admitted. "I've been eating them all week, trying to find the secret."

Obvious relief spread over her face. "You think?" she asked and suddenly she seemed more engaged in the conversation than the entire time before. Fuyumi nodded fervently. "What do you mean secret?"

"Well, they are better than mine." Fuyumi pouted a little as she said it. After all, it was a matter of personal pride. She had always been proud of her own recipe, so to admit that someone did it better…

The chef laughed loudly at that. Loud enough that the guy, over his emptied teacup, looked up in irritation before waving over to the waitress to pay.

The chef threw him a quick glance as if she was irritated by his irritation. But she stopped laughing. Then she looked back at Fuyumi. "Well, I haven't tried yours," she said agreeably. "But thanks."

"I could bring you some," Fuyumi answered automatically. It was an almost instinctive response. It was what she said to her friends when they talked about food, or when she told her pupils about the food she had cooked recently, and they wanted to try some too. That was natural. Only now that she had said it, she realized that it was one thing to offer to bring a friend or one of her pupils or colleagues some sweets, and something else to offer the same thing to a total stranger.

The chef seemed to think the same, as she looked at Fuyumi with big eyes surprised at the offer. Fuyumi immediately blushed in hot embarrassment.

"Uh, I mean… Ah, sorry, this is so emb-"

"I'd like that," the chef answered with a tiny little smile. "I'm Azumi by the way."

"Uh," Fuyumi stopped short, "Fuyumi, I'm Fuyumi."

* * *

I know I wrote a lot about Fuyumi in the A/N in the main story this sunday, and there's not that much more stuff to talk about for this chapter. I will ramble a lot more after Fuyumi II and III. Writing Fuyumi was in many ways an eye-opener for me, but I get to that after I uploaded those chapters. I know I normally don't do this... but I think this time I will make the posting schedule dependent on the feedback. I have both chapters written and betaed, so they are ready to go. But I tend to upload only one a week... So, next chapter will be up next wednesday unless the feedback is overwhelming enough in support of an earlier release to sway me :P

Okay... I wanted to mention one bit about Azumi, that I didn't get to really show in the story, due to language barrier, I guess. Not language barrier between my own language and english but this time between japanese and english. At some point in the chapter - mabe you noticed - Fuyumi mentioned that Azumi talked like a guy. This is something I couldn't quite portray that in English and my Japanese is also not good enough, that I dared to explain it in the text. So... well. When Fuyumi thinks that she speeks like a guy, she doesn't really mean the rude tone or Azumi's mannerisms, but the fact that she uses words - specifically pronouns - that are mostly reserved for men. She's not trans or anything, I think it's more a manner of projecting confidence and power to the outside. I think it's rather comical as... when I googled this it appears nobody would speak like that in Japan without being looked at weirdly. However, this is a fantasy manga story about superheroes... so who's gonna complain about some comical machoism in a woman? xD

What I realized later on: The result is that both Azumi and Endeavor use the same pronouns for themselves, giving them one more similarity apart from their height, standoffish and rather rude nature and social awkwardness... That was rather coincidental though XD Anyway, no wonder she had the guts to stand up to him and tell him to shut up and leave Fuyumi alone, when he wanted to talk to her, huh?


	10. Fuyumi II

So apparently I got addicted to a game and did hardly anything else all week. Certainly didn't get around to writing anything. I hope I'll still manage to update the mainstory in time, but I have doubts aboutt it. So don't be too surprised if there will be no update on sunday. Sorry about that.

This chapter is chonologically the most recent chapter yet among the I'm Watching chapters. The events of this chapter take place parallel to those of Chapters 45/46 of Demons of the Past.

* * *

**Fuyumi II**

"I can't believe it!" Fuyumi fumed with anger. How could he? How dare her father actually went and made it public. An anonymous source from Hokkaido's Hero Society? Yeah, right! She wouldn't fall for it.

Azumi looked confused as she followed Fuyumi into the kitchen. Fuyumi had just come home from work, still raging over the article one of her colleagues had sent her. It was all rubbish of course.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the other woman commented, watching curiously.

"This! Look at this. It's over a month ago and he's still telling that story."

Fuyumi pushed her phone into Azumi's hands for her to read the article as well. Then she turned to the fridge to get something to eat. She grabbed an orange and a knife and sat down at the table to peel it. Her movements were harsh and rough. From the other side of the table, her friend eyed her suspiciously before she started reading the article.

"It's all rubbish," she raged, "why would they believe him and actually print it?"

"It's not actually printed," Azumi replied with a cautious joke. "But it doesn't say that he informed them."

"Of course, it was him!" In her anger, the knife slipped a little and smacked audibly against the wooden board she used as a cutting board.

"Give me that," Azumi demanded, taking the orange and knife from her without asking for permission. Frustrated, Fuyumi let her.

As Azumi started peeling the orange, Fuyumi leaned over the table expectantly. The other woman eyed her with a frown.

"How can you be sure?" she asked after a while.

Fuyumi frowned back at her. "Isn't that obvious?"

Azumi was good with the knife. Of course, she was. She worked in a coffee shop as a chef, after all. She did mostly pastries there, but still. Within only a few moments the orange was peeled, and she pulled the segments apart. Juice spilled over her fingers, when she gave the pieces back to Fuyumi.

"There… And no, actually," she said finally. "I don't think it's obvious." She stood up to clean her hands in the sink and get a kitchen towel. Fuyumi watched her for a bit. Azumi was almost an entire foot taller than her. Almost as tall as Natsuo. Fuyumi always felt a bit short next to her. Of course, she was used to being with Natsuo or even her father who both towered over her. But she wasn't used to looking up to other women like that too. Even after two weeks, she still didn't get quite used to it.

Finally, Fuyumi turned back to the table, taking her phone to look if she had given Azumi the right article to read that would explain her doubts. But no, it was the right article. Just a bunch of lies about her brother being a villain. She hadn't even read it all the way to the end, unable to bear the defamation of her beloved brother.

"I told you, he just made that up to garner some sympathy from us. Shoto and myself. It even worked with Shoto." Her voice trembled a little as she explained. In truth, she couldn't even blame Shoto. He had hardly known Touya after all, so it shouldn't have surprised her that he hadn't seen the lies for what they were. Still, she had been a bit disappointed at first. How could Shoto think their brother could be the same person burning people to death for the League of Villains? But it was Father's fault, she now knew. He had isolated Shoto, so of course he wouldn't know any better. He didn't know Touya like she did, or the way Natsuo did.

"Yes, that's what you told me," Azumi agreed, and in fact Fuyumi had already told her the entire story. Well, most of it. "But it doesn't make sense, don't you think?"

"What do you mean?" Fuyumi asked and she was a bit embarrassed how harsh her voice sounded. None of this was Azumi's fault after all.

"For one, he must have realized that this doesn't garner him any sympathy with you," the other woman explained cautiously. Like she was trying to calm a bucking horse.

"And secondly…"

"He's always been stubborn. You don't know him the way I do!"

They both spoke at the same time. It made Fuyumi even more embarrassed.

"Sorry," Fuyumi muttered. It wasn't just for interrupting Azumi, but also for her unkind tone. She didn't want to vent her anger at her. None of this was Azumi's fault. "But you don't know him. He'd be just the person to stubbornly pursue this path, even knowing it won't work."

_Right_, she told herself, _wasn't that how this whole mess had begun in the first place? Because of his stubbornness and inability to realize when something was futile?_

"And secondly," Azumi continued after a short pause, "why make it public? I understand telling the lie to you, but why to the public? So far, I had the impression he was waiting for this whole situation to pass and now he's throwing oil into the fire?"

Fuyumi was about to retort something, when she realized there was little she could say to that. Azumi was right, she thought. She took a long breath, trying to calm herself, trying to think logically.

"You think he might not have publicized this on purpose? Yeah, maybe they did their own investigation and realized that the police had reopened Touya's case…" She knew for a fact that her father had told the police, who were now investigating. That reminded her… "In any case, it's not the first time he drags other parties into this mess. He did tell the police after all." So, if her father had no qualms involving the police, what would stop him from involving the public?

"Did you consider that they might be writing the truth, and the hint came from some hero on Hokkaido?" Azumi asked carefully.

Fuyumi shook her head immediately. "Well, why would he tell some random hero in Hokkaido about this? Most of his business acquaintances are here or in the Tokyo area." She frowned. "You don't think…?"

She couldn't bring herself to end the question. She had told Azumi everything, had trusted her with all the important details as she had never trusted anybody before. Maybe that had been a mistake. When she told her, she'd almost immediately regretted it, but back then she had drunk a bit too much and she had felt miserable. She had needed somebody to talk and Azumi had been there to listen. She understood. She wouldn't doubt Fuyumi's words now, would she?

"I'm just saying, he's going to an awful length to maintain a lie that is only giving him more trouble no matter how you look at it. With what you told me…" She shrugged, walking up next to Fuyumi, eating one of the orange slices that Fuyumi hadn't even touched yet. "I mean he lost you. From what you told me Natsuo doesn't talk to him either and even your youngest brother doesn't spend much time with him. Never mind the divorce. Now, there's another public scandal waiting even though he's still dealing with the repercussions of the last big reveal." She licked a bit of orange juice from her fingers. "And all that for a lie that doesn't give him any benefits whatsoever? He can't be that stubborn."

Fuyumi huffed. She was almost a little amused, she realized. _Yes, her father could be that stubborn._ She had told Natsuo so once: Her father was the single most stubborn man she knew. She was almost convinced he was the most stubborn man alive and if it wouldn't have ruined their family time and again, and if he didn't put his stubbornness now to telling stupid lies… she would almost admire it.

"You think he's telling the truth," she stated matter-of-factly.

Azumi looked at her as if checking if she was angry. "Sorry…," she muttered. "I know you… I know what you told me. And you know him better than me, I just think…"

"Yes, you're right!" Fuyumi stated. "I know him better than you. I also knew Touya better than you." She was a little angry that Azumi doubted her opinion like that, but truth be told, she also understood her doubts. She had had the same, after all. At first. She remembered restless nights when she had been twisting and turning in her sleep unable to so much as close her eyes, thinking about why her father would do this to her. Ultimately, though, she had put these doubts to rest. It was difficult to imagine why her father would act like that, but in the end, it came down to only two options: Either her father was a liar, or her brother a killer. Touya was dead. She had accepted that. Not for a second did she believe that her brother had killed himself – he wouldn't have left them like this. It had been an accident. The idea that he might be alive was just wishful thinking that she had long outgrown. The mere suggestion that he might have become a villain who was notorious for burning people to death, for instigating the attack on Fukuoka? Ridiculous!

Azumi ate another slice of orange in silence. Fuyumi had the feeling she wanted to say something, wanted to argue, and she only ate the orange to stop herself from disagreeing.

"You're probably right," she finally relented, but she sounded unconvinced.

Fuyumi nodded. She was not happy, knowing full-well that she had failed to convince Azumi. Frustrated, she ate a piece of orange herself. She normally liked oranges. This time however, she didn't even really taste it. In fact, the moment she put it in her mouth, she wanted to swallow as fast as possible, to challenge Azumi again.

"You don't believe me," she accused Azumi.

"It's not about believing," Azumi answered a bit tiredly. "Just…" She was interrupted by a short jingle-sound.

"Just what?" Fuyumi challenged, but Azumi's eyes weren't fixed on her anymore. Instead, the other woman looked down at Fuyumi's phone.

"It's just the news feed," Fuyumi said, annoyed that some random pop-up just interrupted her conversation. She wanted to know what Azumi thought. She turned to the phone to see what Azumi was looking at, when she stopped short.

"**League of Villains Attack in Sapporo**" and above the title there was the picture of a half-destroyed office-building.

She didn't open the article, instead her and Azumi basically ran into the living room to turn on the TV within seconds. It wasn't hard to get the right channel. In fact, it seemed almost every channel brought the same news.

"Oh god."

Azumi sat on the couch heavily, her eyes fixed on the sheer chaos and destruction on screen. Fuyumi still stood at the bookshelf, where she had picked up the remote. This could not be… While they had been arguing without a care and eating orange slices in the kitchen, the city of Sapporo had already been half-destroyed.

Just when Fuyumi wanted to walk over to sit next to Azumi, the camera shifted to another part in town.

"Shit!" Azumi cursed in surprise, shock, and horror when a hero was virtually gutted on live-TV. The camera quickly changed focus again. Fuyumi was frozen to the spot. Had they just… Had they just seen a hero die? That couldn't be right… What were all these Noumu doing in Sapporo!?

"I'm sick of this…," Azumi muttered after the shock had passed a little. "Fukuoka is not even two months ago, and Kamino not even half a year…"

Finally, Fuyumi managed to move again. Like in trance she walked up to sit next to Azumi.

"Yes, me too," she muttered quietly, unable to raise her voice any higher. If Azumi hadn't sat right next to her, she wouldn't have heard her over the noises from the fighting and the commentator's voice from the TV. "I don't get it… why can't they just leave us be?" She was angry now. Last time, she had almost lost her father. She remembered sitting in the car with Natsuo, praying that Endeavor would prevail, that their father might live. And now… another Noumu. Multiple, even. She trembled a little.

She hadn't really listened to the commentary, stricken by the brutal imagery, when a name caught her attention.

"We cannot find Dabi, at the moment," the female commentator almost yelled.

Dabi… This was Dabi's doing? She shivered with cold dread, and it had nothing to do with her quirk. No… No way, this monster was Touya! No way Touya would…

"Look!" Azumi exclaimed suddenly. But Fuyumi had seen it.

The streak of bright orange fire coming down on Sapporo like a burning comet had cut right through her thoughts and fears.

_Father!_

"Endeavor!" Azumi exclaimed. "When did he get to Hokkaido?"

"He must have…," she started to answer, but her voice drifted into nothingness.

_Hokkaido?_

Where the article had stated their information that Dabi was Touya Todoroki had been leaked. No… No, the League would not attack, just because of a filthy lie, right? They wouldn't!

Transfixed, her eyes were glued to the screen. She hardly even registered Azumi's short cheer when Endeavor quickly overwhelmed the first Noumu. It was over so quickly, the camera only turned fast enough to catch the very last moments of that encounter. Then Endeavor turned to join forces with Yoroi Musha against the other Noumu, before suddenly, Dabi intervened.

Dabi…

No! He was not Touya! Fuyumi had long erased all her doubts. How could she even consider that this might be her brother?! Not with all that destruction, Touya would not do that!

Her brother was kind and cheerful and supportive and a bit annoying at times. Her brother was righteous, always willing to put his neck out and to help others or fight injustice. He had done that for them, for Fuyumi and her brothers.

What a filthy, horrible lie!

She watched the fight in utter horror. Her father was there. She tried not to think about Fukuoka, not to remember that horror. Her father had almost died that day. Now he was doing fine, she told herself. He had already defeated one Noumu, and now he had teamed up with Yoroi Musha.

She hardly realized that Azumi had placed an arm around her shoulder. She didn't even register how much she leaned into the hug.

For just a moment, it looked like Dabi was overwhelming Endeavor.

Fuyumi shrieked in panic, grabbing Azumi's hand to hold onto something. She pressed it maybe a bit too hard, but Azumi didn't complain.

"He will pull through," Azumi whispered encouragingly.

Fuyumi nodded, but it didn't do much to curb her panic. _Maybe she was right though_, Fuyumi thought, as Endeavor countered and quickly got the upper hand.

And then, suddenly, everything stopped. It was as if the time stood still, as if Endeavor was frozen in the moment. The camera wasn't close enough that Fuyumi could make out what exactly they were doing. She frowned worriedly. Did something happen? Was there some other quirk that had negated Endeavor's attack?

Yoroi Musha attacked Dabi from the side, tackling him to the ground. The Noumu got involved as well and in the next second the area lit up with Endeavor's bright orange flames. When the flames vanished, the villains were gone.

Fuyumi and Azumi still sat in tense silence, scanning the TV screen for any signs of the villain, until Azumi breathed out audibly. "They got away."

"He survived." She was so relieved she could hardly control her trembling.

"What do you think they were talking about?" Azumi asked after she shut off the TV. They both couldn't deal with the aftermath quite yet. Tomorrow, they'd read about the death toll in the newspapers or online.

Fuyumi shrugged. "Maybe something got in the way of Endeavor's attack," she assumed.

"Fuyu…," Azumi said carefully, lovingly. "Nothing got in the way, he stopped the attack."

"Why would he?" Fuyumi shook her head.

"You saw it!" There was a frustrated edge to Azumi's exclamation. "We watched it together, no way you missed it!"


	11. Fuyumi III

This week as crazy. I was really looking forward to uploading this today, then my comment section over on Demons of the Past exploded and got really abusive in parts... So well, anyway, I hope it doesn't spill over here, but I'll probably not upload this on AO3 for a few more days. I don't really think it will effect the posting schedule on FFN apart from the fact that I literally didn't get to write a single word over all that stress over there, so who knows if the next chapter of the main story will be delayed again...

I'm a bit apprehensive, but I think it should be fine. I hope you have fun!

* * *

**Fuyumi III**

Her mother was obsessed with that fight between Father and Dabi.

Fuyumi herself – although she understood her mother's side – tried to put it into the past. It had been a disaster for the entire country and watching it live… Fuyumi still had bad dreams because of it, and she wasn't even there. In terms of casualties, it was far worse than the Kamino ward incident or Fukuoka. Back then, the heroes had done a fine job protecting the civilians for the most part. Now, the noumu had run rampant through the city for a while before they could finally be stopped.

Still, for Fuyumi, nothing quite compared to the nightmare that was Fukuoka. Back then, she had thought her father had died. There had been a moment with him lying bleeding and unmoving on the ground when she had been almost certain. During the Fukuoka incident she had to watch live as he was beaten to a bloody pulp, within an inch of his life, vomiting blood. Compared to that, Endeavor had hardly even gotten injured in Sapporo.

Thinking about that made her feel even worse. It was selfish of her. People had died in Sapporo, but at least her father had been fine. In Fukuoka, it was the other way around. She might not currently be on speaking terms with her father, but she loved him still. She could not bear watching him die on live TV.

She felt selfish that this was what she focused on. Her personal silver lining regarding the Sapporo incident. Maybe that was the reason why she tried so hard to put the incident past her. She didn't want to be selfish.

Or maybe it was the whole Dabi-Touya-situation. Now, everybody and their mother spoke about it. Her students had asked her about it, one of the children's parents had asked about it, her colleagues asked about it. At least Azumi had given up trying to convince her that Dabi was Touya. Fuyumi tried not to be angry with them. They did not know Touya the way she did. Neither did they know Endeavor the way she knew her father.

But what was Mom's excuse then? She had apparently believed Father since he first told her his absurd lie about the villain Dabi. She tried not to be angry at her mother. After all, she loved Rei and it was not Rei's fault if Father spoon-fed her lies. She was in a very vulnerable situation. But still, shouldn't her mother know better? She was Touya's mother, too, after all. What would her big brother think, if he knew how they all doubted him?

Of course, her big brother was dead, so he wouldn't think or do or say anything. It was just his memory Fuyumi was trying to preserve. And apparently, she was the only one who even tried. Not even Natsuo would help her talk sense into Mom.

When was the last time she talked to Natsuo about that?

When Mom had first asked them about Dabi, Natsuo had still helped her trying to convince Mom that it was all just a lie. He hadn't really said much, had left her to do the talking, but he had been there as emotional back-up. Since then Fuyumi felt like he had increasingly withdrawn himself. First, he had to make up for his missed classwork, then there was a soccer match to train for, then some exams coming up. Apparently, he was still visiting their mother regularly, but never with Fuyumi. She didn't know for sure if he was still trying to make Mom see reason, but she increasingly doubted it. From what her mother told her, Natsuo and her did not talk about Touya at all.

She wished she could talk to Natsuo. Last week she'd seen him at her birthday party and once at Mom's, but even then, he seemed withdrawn and had talked mostly about his courses. Before this whole mess, they had a great relationship, Fuyumi thought, and she didn't quite know what had happened to change that. She missed him.

Shoto wouldn't help talk to Mom either. Mostly because Shoto actually believed their father. Unlike Mom who at least seemed like she still had doubts and questions and who still – even with her limited internet access – had only an incomplete access to information, Shoto didn't even doubt Father's lies.

In any case and for whatever reason, her brothers had left her alone with the task to calm Mom's frantic need for information down. Every time she visited, Mom would ask her about Touya and Dabi and sometimes about father. Every time she had read some more comments online, mostly clueless people throwing wild guesses at each other, ludicrous guesses.

Mom hadn't actually seen the fight in Sapporo live. Fuyumi was glad. Watching the hero Alligatora getting gutted on live TV was not something Fuyumi wanted her mother to watch. Even less so, if she still believed her son was the guilty party. But even with her limited internet access, Mom had still been able to piece together what happened, even if most videos regarding the event were deemed too graphic for her to watch. She had seen some of the fighting, read everything about it that she could, and seen some images.

It made it difficult for Fuyumi to talk to her about the events as she didn't know for sure how much her mother knew. Sometimes Rei knew even more than Fuyumi herself, at other times she seemed completely clueless. It was a minefield Fuyumi was trying to navigate through.

She did not want her mother to even for a second believe that her own son was responsible for a hero being gutted in such a brutal way while just trying to do his job or for the poor civilians being crushed under falling rubble and collapsing buildings. How could Father still hold on to this lie even now, when it could do serious damage to mother's mental state if she would ever see the true depravity of Dabi's actions?

Maybe she already knew… Fuyumi couldn't tell.

She was mad at her father for the lie, at herself for failing to convince mother otherwise and at Natsuo for failing to help her in the endeavor. Mostly, though, she was just tired.

Just two days ago, nobody had even dared think about the possibility that her brother might be the villain called Dabi. As far as anybody had known, Touya Todoroki was dead, died by suicide or through a tragic accident depending on who you asked. Now, suddenly everybody was convinced that her brother was a villain, an arsonist and murderer. For hours on end the different news channels looped footage of him dancing through Sapporo while people died. And while they showed those gruesome images they were talking about her family as if the two things had anything to do with each other.

Just two days ago it had been nothing more than a stupid lie of her father. Now, it seemed like the entire world stood against her; like all humanity had collectively gone mad, turning her big brother from a kind teenager who died a tragic death to a monster dancing through the ruins of a city.

And then there were the paparazzi. If she thought they were bad after Natsuo's diary had become public, now it was even worse. Just this morning, two of them came onto school grounds, pushing one of her pupils away to get a statement from her. Her school had to take her off the break time supervision schedule and if it would get any worse, she might even consider asking for a two-week-leave. Hopefully by then the dust would have settled again.

She visited her mother on an almost daily basis since the divorce procedures had become more serious. Now, two days after the incident in Sapporo, she entered the hospital hoping that she would not have to talk about the subject again.

Fuyumi really wanted to convince her mother to see reason, but just for once, she just wanted her life to be normal again. No paparazzi, no Dabi, no Touya, no Sapporo, no Endeavor. She didn't even want to talk about the abuse. The media had already trampled on that subject enough that she could hardly even remember what had really happened and what was just their invention… never mind IF it had really happened or was just some weird sitcom and she just didn't get the joke.

She entered her mother's room with a stack of papers in hand. Her mom stood at the small sink close to the door. Fuyumi already ran into her when she entered.

"Fuyumi!" Mom exclaimed a towel still in her hands. She immediately took her daughter into her arms, pressing her lightly. Fuyumi returned the hug happily. "You're here, I've already been waiting!"

Her voice sounded happy, Fuyumi thought, but there was an undefinable edge to it. Fuyumi couldn't quite identify it.

"You did? Did something happen?" She asked with a smile, although her eyes roamed the room warily looking for her mother's smartphone or some newspaper closeby. Surely whatever had her mother so happy but on edge had something to do with Dabi. It seemed Mom couldn't think of anything else anymore. Even the letter from Yaoyorozu, her mother's lawyer, asking for a date for a psychological evaluation still laid unanswered on her desk. Fuyumi had found that one among her mother's mail yesterday.

Indeed, her mother took her hand to pull her toward the bed where she reached for her phone. "I found a video about Touya," she said.

Suspiciously Fuyumi eyed the phone. "I thought the videos from the fight were blocked because of the graphic imagery."

"There's not really that much fighting in it," Rei said. "It's from when Touya and Enji talked."

Fuyumi hated it, when her mom referred to Dabi as Touya, as if there was not even a question about who he was.

"What about that letter from Yaoyorozu-san?" Fuyumi asked to distract her mother. She really did not want to see this video. She didn't have the nerve to deal with it now. Surely if it was anything important, she'd hear of this video through other channels. One particular colleague of hers always knew everything going on around Endeavor. He texted Fuyumi regularly about new videos and articles he found. It got a bit annoying, but she guessed she should be thankful that he kept her informed. "Did you already arrange a date?"

"Just a second. It always takes a while to load," Mom said, completely ignoring Fuyumi's question.

Fuyumi's brows furrowed. "You know Dad's attorney asked for a timely response." How could her mother push these important matters off to watch Yap!Tube videos? "It's really important."

But Mom didn't respond still.

"Mom?" Fuyumi's voice got a little more demanding.

"Yes, dear?" When Rei looked up, Fuyumi saw how distracted she seemed, as if she really hadn't listened to a word Fuyumi said. She looked a little like a deer caught in the headlights.

Embarrassed that she had surprised her mother like that, Fuyumi motioned towards the desk. "The psychological evaluation?"

It seemed to take forever until Mom finally looked over to the letter on the desk. "I will get to that next week."

"The longer you wait the worse it will look for you," Fuyumi explained.

Mom's gaze drifted to the ground, her head lowering a little so her white hair would hide her face. What was going on?

"I know," she finally admitted.

"So why do you wait for so long?"

Maybe her tone was a little accusatory, Fuyumi thought when her mother flinched a little. She felt immediately bad about it. To take some tension out of the situation she took her shoes off and scooted all the way back on her mother's bed until she leaned with the back against the wall, ankles crossed on the mattress. She motioned for her mother to sit next to her.

"Are you worried about it?" Fuyumi asked carefully.

"Of course, I am," Mom replied tiredly. "What if I fail?"

"What if you fail?" Fuyumi repeated. "Mom, you know none of us expect you to do this. We know…" She shook her head because she couldn't find her words at first. "We all know that you're trying your best but that it will be difficult. We won't be mad if something goes wrong. You're still healing."

Part of her had been surprised, even a little irritated when she found out her parents' decision regarding custody over her little brothers. Ultimately, she knew that it would be the best solution if Rei could take custody. She didn't even know what made her feel irritated. Maybe it had been the fact that her parents hadn't even thought about consulting her on the matter. Neither, and maybe more importantly, had they talked about it with Shoto or Natsuo. When Shoto visited her at her birthday he even spoke about how Father had told him he would keep custody over him, and then suddenly that changed out of nowhere. Fuyumi tried wherever she could, but these divorce proceedings felt so out of her hands. Nobody had ever asked her if she was okay with it or what she wanted.

Again, thinking about it made her feel selfish, because neither her mother nor her brothers and maybe not even her father shared her concerns. Was she the only one who did not actually want her parents to divorce? Was she selfish because she secretly still wished for the divorce to be canceled? Her mother seemed so much livelier since Father had agreed to the divorce. Shoto already looked forward to Mom leaving the hospital for good and moving into her own flat, making plans to visit during the upcoming winter break. And Fuyumi knew for a fact that Natsuo had wanted their parents to divorce for years. He spoke about getting Mother away from Father's influence since he had moved out.

Why was she the only one who did not want that?

"I can't fail," her mother replied after a while. "Under no circumstances."

"I'm sure Dad will not cut you off," Fuyumi replied hopefully. "You said he was very cooperative, so far. Why would—"

"I can't fail!" Rei cut her off more forcefully.

Surprised, Fuyumi stared at her. It was rare that her mother raised her voice, never mind interrupted anybody. She wanted to ask why, but instead she just stared at her mother, dumbfounded.

"I can't. How would that look?"

"Who cares how it would look?" Fuyumi cut in, but apparently, she missed the point.

"What would it say about me?" Mom looked at her hands. They were shaking slightly, Fuyumi realized. "I'm your mother. And I've failed you all for the last ten years. If they declare me unfit… unfit to be a mother…"

"Mom, you're sick. Nobody blames you," Fuyumi interjected. There was no room for argument in her voice. She would not let her mom blame herself. "We all just did what we could."

"You did great!" Rei rejected her argument. "But I… I didn't do enough. Never enough. There's no excuse." She gritted her teeth. "You all did so well, but me… Why couldn't I do better too?"

Fuyumi was stunned at first. "It's not the same," she tried, running out of things to say. "The situation was different." She felt tears well in her eyes. Furiously she rubbed at her eyes, but the itchy feeling wouldn't quite pass. "Please, Mom…

Mom apparently had more to say, but she quieted at her daughter's distress. "I'm sorry, Fuyumi," she said, but Fuyumi didn't know what exactly she was apologizing for. For bringing her so close to tears now, or for leaving her years ago?

"Please, just make an appointment."

Rei looked as if she wanted to object, but she just nodded. "I will. First thing tomorrow." When Fuyumi looked doubtful, she added "I swear."

Fuyumi nodded. "I brought you information for some available apartments I found." Fuyumi continued, taking the stack of paper she had brought with her that now laid next to her on the bed. "I've already excluded everything that was too small or in a bad area." She showed her the details of the first of the objects. "I thought it would be best if you stayed in Tatooin. That would be close to the hospital, just in case. And it wouldn't be a complete change. You could still use the same shops and go to the same places," Fuyumi explained. She pointed at the picture of the apartment. "It's a bit small, I think, but you would have a small bit of garden. That would be great, right?"

"It would be," Mom said, taking the paper, but her eyes weren't really moving over the page, so Fuyumi doubted she was really reading any of the information on there.

"There aren't that many objects with gardens," she explained, smiling, before giving her mother the next two pages. "That's in Aldera. It would be close to Natsu's. It's already five minutes on foot and he already said he'd be happy to help you out whenever you need."

Mom looked unhappy at that. "I'm not supposed to need your help," she told Fuyumi with a tired smile taking the papers from her daughter. "That's not how it's supposed to be."

Fuyumi bit her lip in regret while suppressing the groan that wanted to find its way out of her throat. None of this was how it was 'supposed to be'. Her mother wasn't supposed to spend half her life in hospital either.

This time it at least looked like Rei was somewhat interested in the apartment. "It doesn't have a garden, but there is a small balcony." Fuyumi explained.

"Natsuo…," Rei whispered after a while. "He won't move in with me, right?"

Fuyumi shook her head. They had already spoken about this. "You know he lives in the dormitories. I doubt he will want to move again. Shoto, too. He lives on the UA campus. But they will visit during the holidays, I'm sure."

Mom didn't seem happy about this. There was a troubled look on her face. "What about you?" she asked finally.

"I just moved in," Fuyumi replied surprised, "with Azumi." She wasn't really the issue, as she was already an adult. It was normal that most people her age with their own income had moved out or were in the process of moving out of their parent's houses. "I told you."

"You said you moved out because of your father. But you could move in with me." Mom looked at her almost expectantly. Fuyumi glanced at her in surprise that her mother even considered the details like this.

"I…don't," she stammered unsure what to say. "I don't want to… please, Mom, don't make me."

Suddenly her mother's jaw fell open a little. Fuyumi put her hand on her mouth in shock. Oh, she had not just said that! She didn't want to put her mother in distress.

"I mean," she backpaddled immediately. "I could, if you wanted me to. Or if you needed me," she smiled a wobbly smile, nodding her consent. "It would be no problem. We could make a girl's apartment. That would be fun, I bet."

She didn't sound convinced. She didn't even need her mother's doubtful look to tell her that. It was painfully obvious even to her. Her mother's eyebrows raised in wonder.

"Fuyumi, you know you don't have to."

"No, I want to!" Fuyumi declared, biting her own tongue in frustration. She didn't want to.

"Tell me, Fuyumi, are you happy living on your own?" Rei's eyes twinkled a little with the question.

"Huh?" Fuyumi swallowed dryly. "I… Of course, I'm happy," she finally answered. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Mom looked at her for a long time, so Fuyumi felt the need to continue after a while.

"I mean, yeah… I am." And she was. Maybe now sitting in her mother's room thinking about it was the first time she realized it, really. "It's a place of my own. I mean… Azumi leaves her stuff everywhere, but it's…" she didn't quite find the right word.

_Easier_, she thought, _freeing. I'm finally able to breath._

There's no way she could tell her mother that. She didn't want her to worry. Fuyumi was fine. She had been fine at home with her father and she was fine, now.

"I understand," her mother said after what felt like an eternity. Her eyes roamed around the room in a way that made Fuyumi look around herself as well, but she didn't quite understand what her mother wanted to tell her.

_It was different_, Fuyumi thought.

_I'm not like Mom. I'm not sick and oppressed that I needed to escape._

"I wonder…" But her mother didn't finish her sentence.

"What?" When her mother still didn't want to tell her, Fuyumi insisted again. "What did you want to say?"

Finally, Mom relented. "Did you talk to your father recently? After his fight against Touya—"

"It's not Touya!" Fuyumi interrupted her, but her mother simply raised her hand to indicate that she hadn't finished.

"Or when his sidekick got attacked?"

Fuyumi shook her head. She had thought about calling and asking how he was doing, but then… Endeavor hadn't been injured, so what was the point? "No," she said. Maybe she felt a little ashamed because of that. "Why? What does this have to do with anything?"

"I just wondered, if maybe…" She hesitated again. "Maybe it's not Touya or Dabi that makes you avoid him."

"What are you suggesting?" Fuyumi asked suspiciously. "Of course it's because of Touya. How dare he…?" She stopped when she realized that old anger reared its head again. She didn't want to be angry now.

"It's just, that of all of us, you were always the one most willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and now you won't even consider that he might be telling the truth. You're the _only one_ doubting him." Her mother looked at her expectantly.

"Because it's absurd," Fuyumi insisted, "why would Touya do something like that? It makes no sense!"

"Why would Enji lie about it, then? And you know exactly what motive Touya might have to attack hero society." Mom answered patiently.

"He's not just attacking hero society?!" Fuyumi snapped angrily. "He's murdering civilians."

She immediately regretted it, when her mother's face blanched and her lower lip quivered slightly. Of course, Mom knew this already, but hearing it would hurt her even more. She still thought Dabi was Touya after all.

"I told you, why he made up the lie," she continued quieter. "To win over my sympathies."

"That's absurd," Rei said softly. "And you know it makes no sense."

Frustrated, Fuyumi jumped from the bed and paced around the room, leaving the stack of apartment information behind. "I'm not the only one anyways!" She insisted. "Not the only one doubting him. Natsu does too."

"Did you ever ask Natsuo about it?" her mother asked carefully.

"Of course," she answered immediately. "He thought it was absurd, too."

"Is that what he said?"

"Yes." She hesitated. "I don't know." She didn't actually remember, she realized. But they had talked about it, right? Surely, they had talked about the issue. She remembered asking him about what he thought. Distractedly she pulled out her phone trying to go through her messages. They had texted about it, she remembered. Had they never spoken face to face? Or did she forget about that?

Scrolling through the messages, she cursed lightly, because that message had to be weeks back and she couldn't find it.

"Why?" she finally asked. "What did he tell you?"

Mom sighed, nodding towards the edge of the bed. Fuyumi sat down next to her again if only to encourage her mother to finally answer.

"He told me that he met and knew Dabi was Touya for the past two years."

Fuyumi stared at her. That was… not possible. No way. She must have dreamt that. Natsuo would have told her.

"He said Touya revealed himself to him when Natsuo visited his grave. They were in close contact for two years, but he didn't know about his villain activities."

"That's absurd," Fuyumi insisted. "Why wouldn't he tell me?"

"Touya asked him to keep quiet until he was ready to reveal himself on his own terms." Mom sounded incredibly said as she said that.

Too sad for this to just be another lie.

Had Natsuo lied to her. Had Father made him? No, that made no sense. None of this made sense. Had her entire family lost their minds and turned on her big brother? Why couldn't they see that none of this made any sense?!

"He told you that?" Fuyumi almost choked on her words.

"Right after Enji told me, he confirmed it." Mom nodded.

"Why wouldn't he tell me?" She sounded accusatory even if her mother was not at fault at all. "He never told me."

"I don't know," Rei said with a slight shrug. "But maybe, it's because of how insistent you were." She looked sad. "That's the reason I put it off for so long, before I told you." She sighed. "You never even considered that it might be true."

Fuyumi swallowed dryly. _How could any of this have happened?_ She remembered her mother's earlier words then.

"You suggested there might be a different reason I avoid father," she remembered. "What did you mean?"

"Did you ever consider that this Touya-thing might just be a convenient excuse to avoid your father?" her mother asked.

"I don't understand. A convenient excuse? I cut him out of my life almost entirely." Whatever her mother tried to tell her, it was clearly not true.

"And I believe you did it out of anger at first. But you're not the kind of person to hold onto a grudge for weeks. You didn't even visit him for almost two months. And I know he tried to contact you, because every time he does, you complain about it to me." She raised her hands placatingly. "I don't mind you complaining to me, it just seems so unlike you."

"So you think…?" Fuyumi asked again, because so far, she didn't get any answers.

"I think you're afraid." She stated it plainly.

Fuyumi froze where she sat.

_Afraid?_

"Of forgiving him. Of him asking you to move back in and you not having an excuse not to." Her mother sighed, indicating the room around her. "I never told any of you, because… well, frankly, because I thought it made me a bad mother, but…" She looked back at Fuyumi. "When he first left me here, I was so relieved. I didn't want to go back. I was terrified of a time he'd come and take me back home. He never came for over ten years. I think, to a lesser degree, it might be the same for you."

Was that it? Fuyumi wasn't sure, but some of what her mother said hit awfully close to home. Was she just avoiding the truth, so she didn't have to go back home? Was she selfish again?

"I know what you did," Her mother continued. "While your father and I failed you and your siblings, you took up the pieces and tried your best to help your brothers. I'm so sorry for everything you must have sacrificed. But your brothers are almost adults now and I think your father and I can deal with the rest. And you're already an adult, Fuyumi. You can do what you want and if you don't want to go back home, live your own life, there's nothing wrong with that."

Fuyumi simply stared at her. Was she crying? Her fingers touched her cheek, surprised to see it wet with tears.

Was that really it?

Was she just lying to herself, to avoid her responsibilities?

"Why would you tell me now?" She asked almost angry and immediately ashamed of the question. What? Did she really prefer to wallow in ignorance? Pathetic! She was the daughter of the number one hero and too cowardly to confront the truth?!

"Because whatever you choose, you can't keep pretending." Her mother took her phone, putting it in her hand. "There's evidence and you can't ignore it forever."

Absent-mindedly and not really knowing what she was to expect, Fuyumi pressed the play-button.

She recognized the scene immediately. Sapporo, two days ago, Endeavor and Dabi standing face to face. Dabi? Or Touya? Could this really be her brother? Part of her still wanted to deny it. Something was different about the video. Through her teary eyes, she didn't immediately recognize the difference in color grading and the ultra-close zoom. But she could immediately hear the difference in the audio. It sounded ugly, but through the static she could clearly make out two voices isolated from the background enough to make them stand out.

"_You need to stop, Dabi!_" A voice she only barely recognized as her father's said. "_Please stop, Touya._"

"I told you, my name is—" the villain replied angrily, but was interrupted by Yoroi Musha's attack.

The clip ended. Mom clicked on the next video leaving the phone in Fuyumi's hands. It was similar to the last. Sapporo, two days ago, Endeavor was on screen fighting a Noumu. The color grading and sound were manipulated again. Suddenly Dabi appeared on screen, jumping in to attack Endeavor. He said something Fuyumi didn't quite understand. She rewound, listened again, and again.

"_Fancy seeing you here, Daddy dearest._"

Wordlessly she gave her mother her phone back. So that was it… Not a lie at all, just an ugly truth she had closed her eyes off to.

"I need to call Dad," she said frantically. How could she doubt him for so long? How could she abandon him now of all times when he needed her most?

"Oh god," she jumped up frantically. "How could I abandon him like that? I was so selfish! I need to…"

"Fuyumi," her mother cut her off. "That wasn't what I…"

"I leave you the apartment information," Fuyumi absentmindedly nodded to the stack of paper still on the bed. "I really need to go."

"That wasn't what I was trying to tell you!" Her mother insisted, but Fuyumi was already half-way out the door.

"Sorry, Mom," she waved quickly. "I'll be back tomorrow. I just need to…" She didn't know how to finish that sentence, so she just left.

"Fuyumi!" Her mother called out, following after her but by the time Rei stepped onto the corridor, Fuyumi was already at the elevators.

* * *

Yeah so... I guess for those who haven't realized it yet. Fuyumi's story is very much centered all around her moving out. I think for a young woman like her - especially considering the very restricted and oppressed household she lived in, where she always tried very hard to keep the peace - is an important step.

I was asked a few times why Fuyumi was meaner in my story than in canon or why she wouldn't give Enji another chance, or how long it would take for her to understand that her Dad wasn't lying. Well, the truth it, I think she was in denial. Of course, she didn't know if her father spoke the truth or not, she probably really thought he must be lying, because it seemed unimaginable, but really it was just a convenient excuse to finally spread her wings and be free. I think she moved out in an instant of impulsive anger but then she quite enjoyed it and there is a part of her that is terrified of going back. Not so much afraid of her father or what he might do, but just of being stuck there. She's a people-pleaser I think, so it's incredibly hard for her to put her own well-being above others, even when it actively harms her - and I think subconsciously enjoying this new-found freedom, she understood that too. She stayed at home even long after 22, even when her father was abusive and neglecting her emotional needs, first for Natsuo, for Shoto, to make up for Rei missing, ultimately even for her father. Fuyumi I think had to grow up very quickly, taking care of others, maybe through that, she never really matured to take care of herself too. Now she finally gets that, but still, if it came down to it and she had to choose between her own well-being and her families, she'd probably still choose her family. Pretending her father failed her and did not deserve her help was probably the only way she could push it off and keep enjoying her freedom.


	12. Natsuo III

Hello,

as mentioned instead of yesterday's chapter update in the main story, here is a small and long overdue Natsuo chapter to help you over the time. I hope you like it.

* * *

**Natsuo III**

His screen blinked with unread messages. He had it muted, so he could ignore it more easily, but the screens still blinked obnoxiously, flashing Fuyumi's name and picture. Rubbing his palms nervously, he picked the phone up and swiped both the unanswered calls and unread messages aside. It was a fool's errand. Surely in just a few minutes his sister would send another message. He should just shut the phone off, but instead he put it back down, staring at it as if now that it had stopped blinking, he missed it and just waited for another message he wouldn't read.

He knew what Fuyumi wanted. The first call he had accepted and the first messages he had read had made it painfully obvious. His mother had told Fuyumi the truth. Finally. Part of him felt relieved that the truth was finally in the open, that he didn't have to act around Fuyumi anymore, but he also felt betrayed. Why had Mom told on him? Couldn't she just have explained it to Fuyumi without dragging him into the mess?

Of course, he knew he was being ridiculous. Fuyumi would not have believed Mom, if all the evidence Mom had was 'that Endeavor had told her'. Never mind that Natsuo should have had the balls to fess-up long ago. But he didn't. And now he was still avoiding her, unwilling to face her wrath.

It was difficult to get Fuyumi angry, he knew from experience, and on the phone she had sounded angry. He wasn't prepared to face that, even less so, since he had no justified reasons to explain his behavior. At least no reasons that would calm her. He couldn't tell her that not only had he met Touya years ago without telling her, but that he had also schemed with Touya to fake his own kidnapping that had almost resulted in their father's death. How was he going to explain that? She'd never talk to him again!

She would hate him for what he had put her and the entire family through.

Why was he such an idiot?

And a coward!?

Maybe that was the reason Endeavor had never trained him. Not because of his weak quirk, but because he was a coward and not made to be a hero and it was plainly obvious!

He hit himself against the head in anger. There he was again, wallowing in self-pity, when he should just call back, explain himself. Fess up! She wouldn't hate him, he knew she loved him, she was his sister after all.

But he was afraid to.

The one time he had taken the call, she hadn't let him get a word in and even if she had, he wouldn't even know what to say. Then he had just ended the call like the coward he was.

He stared at his phone, as the screen lit up again, willing himself to take it, to read the message and text something back. Anything. To make her know that he wasn't just ignoring her, that he did care, and this wasn't just a game to him, testing how long she'd need to find out the truth. He willed his hand to move, but it didn't, wouldn't, just stayed clenched where it was.

He was so useless!

He flinched, jerked back, almost jumped off his chair, when there was a knock on the door. For a moment he stared at the wood, as if there was the devil itself waiting outside. Then there was another knock. Forceful, decisive, making the door shake a little in the frame.

Fuyumi?

That was his first thought, terrified that instead of facing her through text or even a phone call, he'd have to explain himself to her face. Like a deer in the headlights, he sat there unmoving.

"Open up, this is Detective Sato from the Musutafu Police Department!" a male voice called out.

Natsuo jumped. Not Fuyumi. He was almost relieved, as he hurried to the door to finally open it.

"Yeah?" he asked curiously, catching a quick glance at the two cops' faces before quickly looking down the hall as if to check if there were more of them. He didn't really want to exchange eye-contact. He felt guilty. He felt guilty for weeks now, and he was afraid it would show on his face.

"Good evening, Todoroki-san. We have a few questions for you," Sato said without preamble.

The woman next to him was Ayasegawa. Natsuo remembered both of them from when he had to give his witness statement after the kidnapping. Quickly his eyes flicked between the two, before he looked at his own hand on the side of the door.

"What about?" he asked, almost cringing at how stupid that sounded, even to his own ears. Endeavor had warned him they might come. Of course, he hadn't warned him that they would have such great timing catching him in a moment of vulnerability like now. Any day of the week, he would have preferred it. Hell, he would have preferred it if they pulled him out of his class for this even if that would catch the attention of his fellow classmates. And with this whole scandal regarding his family, he got more than enough attention already.

"What do you think?" Sato asked, somewhat impatient.

"We have some follow-up questions regarding your kidnapping last month," Ayasegawa responded more diplomatically.

From the corner of his eyes, he could see some of his neighbors peak their heads out of their doors. They were listening, he thought, embarrassed.

"Can't this…?" he was about to ask, when Sato interrupted him.

"May we come in please, to talk in private?" the detective asked with a meaningful look at one of his neighbors who quickly closed their door in shame.

Natsuo wanted to tell them no, but instead he almost automatically let go of his door and moved into the room in a silent invitation to follow. He regretted it the moment Ayasegawa closed the door behind herself. His student dorm was much too small for himself and two police officers frowning down on him. Quietly he sat on his bed, hunching a little. When he realized his subdued position, he tried to stretch out again, but it felt fake.

Instead of asking their questions, they looked around the small room, making Natsuo uncomfortable and suddenly aware of the chaos.

"May I sit?" asked Ayasegawa.

No.

"Sure," he muttered.

She sat down on his desk chair, the only chair in the room, leaving Sato to stand. He was extremely irritated by the man standing right in the middle of his room. If Natsuo stood, he knew he'd be almost a foot taller than him, but stupidly, he had sat down on his bed and now the other man was towering over him. He considered if he should stand up, to gain back some confidence, but before he could make the decision, Ayasegawa brought him out of his thoughts.

"You stated in your witness statement, that you were let out of the hide-out by the villain Twice," she started making him jerk his head in her direction, "is that correct?"

He didn't quite remember. Had he said that. But it was the truth, so he nodded.

"Can you please answer with 'yes' or 'no'," Ayasegawa asked with a smile.

"Uh… yes," he stammered.

"You further reported that you went straight to the next phone booth at the corner two blocks down?"

"Sure," he answered, still not quite remembering what he had said. He should have written it down, he thought annoyed.

He should call Endeavor, he thought. His father had made him promise that he would call. He hadn't really wanted to, but Endeavor had been adamant.

"There have been some inconsistencies coming up," Ayasegawa informed him in that moment. "Do you have time to join us in the department, so we can take your statement again?"

"I don't…" he looked from her to Sato, who still scowled down at him. He didn't want to follow them.

"It's just some questions," Ayasegawa reinsured.

"I mean…" he glanced at the window, noting it already got a little late. "Isn't it a bit late."

"Do you have other plans?" Ayasegawa asked understandingly.

But he didn't have any other plans, and he couldn't come up with a lie quick enough, so he shook his head.

"Then why not now?"

There was little he could say against that, so he tried a different route. "I need to call my father," he said.

"You have ten minutes," Sato said.

It was the first thing he said since he had entered the room, and his tone made Natsuo immediately hunch again. Suddenly, it seemed like an order. As if before they had asked politely if he had time, and now he was suddenly on a timer, with only ten minutes until he had to follow them to the police department.

"Ok," he agreed, angry at himself, that he couldn't just tell them 'no' as he wanted too.

"We'll be waiting outside," Sato informed him in a gruff voice. Natsuo still remembered when he had given his first statement, the detective had been kind and understanding. Now, his whole demeanor changed.

He immediately called the number to Endeavor's office. He couldn't even remember when he had called that number the last time, if ever. But he was redirected from Endeavor's office to his secretary. Of course, Endeavor wasn't in the house.

He hardly knew the man introducing himself as Fujiwara Inari. Maybe he had seen him at once or twice working with Endeavor, but he hadn't really cared for Endeavor's work ever since Touya had supposedly died. Still he tried explaining the situation to this man, feeling embarrassed at having to explain himself to a virtual stranger.

Endeavor's secretary seemed already informed about the situation, making Natsuo suddenly angry. How dare Endeavor tell all his employees about Natsuo's private problems? But he swallowed down his anger, as it was not the man's fault.

Soon, Inari redirected him to a different person, a woman introducing herself as Ide. Impatiently, and increasingly nervous, as the ten minutes were quickly approaching their end, he tried to explain the situation before.

"You're at home?" she asked after his hasty explanation. "Please, stay where you are, I'll be there in thirty minutes."

"No, no," he replied quickly. "I'm at home, but I'll go to the police department in a few minutes. They want to retake the statement."

"Please, wait until I'm there," she responded, not changing her stance.

"I can't."

"Todoroki, you don't have to follow them now. We can schedule an interview for a different time," she tried to explain.

Natsuo shook his head almost desperately. She didn't understand. "I already agreed to come," he argued. And wouldn't that only make him look more suspicious if he backed out now?

As if on cue, there was a loud and impatient knock on the door.

"I gotta go," he quickly interrupted her, before Ide could form another response.

"Okay," she finally relented. "I'll meet you at the station. Don't say anything, until I'm there. Nothing," she repeated intendedly. "Not even 'yes' or 'no'."

"Ok," he agreed, not sure if he would be able to keep that promise.

"I'll see you in a few."

He ended the call, when Sato knocked again.

An hour later, he sat in a stuffy room with no windows, and a table and chairs being the only furniture. There was a big mirror on one side, that – if Natsuo's movie knowledge served him right – was probably only one-way giving whoever was in the neighboring room a clear view.

If he had been close to panic when he had first arrived at the police station, now he was calmer, almost bored. As soon as his father's lawyer arrived, she had taken over almost the entire conversation. It gave him time to cool down, get his wits together and quench the terrible fear in his gut.

At one point, they showed him the photo of a young woman, and he truthfully denied ever seeing her before, even if she had obviously seen him. Apparently, she had testified that she recognized him from one of the paparazzi photos that were not easy to find both on the internet and in the newspapers and had quickly called the police after she found out about the kidnapping. Her statement was pretty damning. She saw Natsuo both enter the hide-out of his own free will and even come back to it after he was first 'set free'.

Maybe he should be more fearful that he might be found out, but instead, Ide's presence had a calming effect on him. It was like she had everything under control. He was half-certain, that even if there were video footage of him amicably talking to the League of Villains, she might somehow subvert their suspicions.

He leaned back a little, still nervously fiddling with his hands, but much calmer than before.

"Did you know that Dabi was your brother?" Sato asked for the third time now. The first time Natsuo had flinched a little, now he just avoided eye-contact letting Ide deal with the questions. "Surely, you can't tell me that you did not recognize your own brother."

"As you might know," Ide said calmly, "Dabi looks a lot different then the Touya my client knew as a child. Not only did he age six years, but he changed physically. Never mind that Touya was supposed to be dead."

"Excuse me, but wouldn't you recognize your own brother, even if he had dyed his hair?" Ayasegawa questioned with a frown.

"If the different hair color was all there was," Ide answered. "But maybe you remember that even Enji Todoroki did not recognize his own son before."

"So he says," Sato replied darkly.

Endeavor didn't know, Natsuo wanted to throw in, tired of these accusations that he now even saw on TV. As if Endeavor would have let Dabi run rampant like that if he knew. The mere suggestion that he might be protecting his son was ridiculous. But he stayed quiet as instructed.

Before Ide could angrily retort the unspoken accusation, Ayasegawa waved it away. "Let's not talk about Endeavor, here. This is about Natsuo."

"Yes, it is," Ide agreed. "And may I ask about the nature of this interview? My client was told he was asked to answer questions as a witness. Yet your questions suggest, he might be a suspect?"

"Your client is not a suspect," Ayasegawa stated.

"Yet," Sato added darkly, before adding in a more conversational tone, "we simply need to follow every trace we got."

"Of course," Ide replied with a thin smile. "My client's own father was the primary victim of…"

Before she could finish, whatever she wanted to say, Sato interrupted her with a disbelieving huff. "Now, please, Ide-san, don't try insinuating that your client had no motive to hurt his own father. By now, we all know the nature of their relationship, don't we? You have your motive right there."

Ide seemed to relent to that point. It went on like this for a while. Increasingly the conversation seemed to move away from the actual subject, even if the detectives started several attempts to get back on track. He realized then that Ide went a different way. Instead of discrediting their witness, she started discrediting their work. She made it a point to increasingly bring up Natsuo's age, the scandal, the fact that his father was the victim and his brother a perpetrator, to make them feel increasingly bad about just blindsiding him in his student dorm, effectively dragging him away to this interview without informing the parents or reading him any rights. She accused them of using the shield, that he was only a witness, when they in fact treated and saw him already as a suspect which would warrant a different treatment.

Natsuo at one point didn't really listen anymore, unable to understand all the legal jargon.

"And how do you explain this 'Justice for Natsuo'-thing?" Sato asked at one point more heatedly, increasingly frustrated at the direction the interview went.

"What are you suggesting?" Ide replied venomously.

Sato apparently realized he had done something wrong, because he didn't reply. Instead he sank back into his chair, apologizing for his outbreak.

"I hope you are not suggesting, my client has anything to do with these villains?" Ide didn't let it go.

"Of course not," Sato said quietly, "I apologize."

He looked at his colleague, then after Ayasegawa nodded left to bring coffee. Natsuo looked after him, curiously. Justice for Natsuo? He had heard the phrase before, read it on the internet and someone had even smeared it across a wall close to his dormitory where he walked by on his way to soccer practice. But he hadn't paid it much attention. He wasn't a big fan of it, not because he didn't appreciate the gesture but because it often came combined with other less agreeable phrases. He didn't pay much attention to it, but a few times he saw the tag combined with a #DeathToEndeavor or similar tags. He had been sick to his stomach reading some of their posts and then ignored it completely.

From the way it sounded, it wasn't just a random phrase to express some ill-placed solidarity with him or his family, but instead it was referring to a villain? Or a group of villains?

He was about to ask Ide about that, when the door suddenly burst open.

There he was, his father, raging mad and interrupting his interview. Natsuo stared at him in surprise. When Endeavor told him to, he followed without complaint. Only in the car did he regret it. If his dorm room with two cops inside was too cramped, this vicinity in the car with Endeavor was impossible to bear.

Why did he come? Why did he have to come? Everything was under control. And this was just one more thing Natsuo had to thank him for. He was sick and tired of being in this man's debt. Couldn't he have just let Ide handle the situation? She was doing well.

But of course, Ide was not even really his own lawyer. She was Endeavor's lawyer, worked for and was paid by him. One way or the other, if Natsuo got out of it, he'd have to thank Endeavor for it… Was that even worth it?

* * *

This was honestly really difficult to write. I think my most difficult Natsuo chapter yet, because there recently was so much going on with Natsuo, things I could write an entire Natsuo chappter about, but I don't have the time for it. So I had to push several things in this one chapter. I hope it's not to bloated. Anyway there will be more regarding the situation about Natsuo and Fuyumi in the main story...soon-ieh so for now I won't write a scene with the two. If I find time for it either in the main story or here, I may write another chapter getting into what Natsuo thinks about the JfN. But that will have to take a backseat for now, as there is other stuff, I need to get to first.

Sunday there will be the next main-story update.

Also on a different note, I'm now trying to structure the upcoming few chapters in the main story, and I realize I still have a lot of trouble getting Shoto into the story. There will be more about Fuyumi and Natsuo too, but Shoto is really difficult to write about for me. So if you have any ideas how to throw him into the main story, let me hear it.


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